Last Call For Brazil Nuts, Con't

And on his first day on the job, Brazil's new leader Jair Bolsonaro goes straight to step seven on the Genocide Watch chart and begins singling out Brazil's indigenous, Afro-Brazilians, and the LGBTQ community for persecution.

Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro issued executive orders targeting Brazil’s indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America’s largest nation.

One of the orders issued late Tuesday, hours after his inauguration, likely will make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Areas set aside for “Quilombolas,” as descendants of former slaves are known, are also affected by the decision.

Another order removed the concerns of the LGBT community from consideration by the new human rights ministry.

In a move favorable to his allies in agribusiness, which have criticized giving large swaths of lands to the indigenous, Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazil’s lower house and has opposed requests from native communities.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and quilombolas.

“Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil,” Bolsonaro tweeted Wednesday. “They are explored and manipulated by nonprofits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians.”

The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the FUNAI agency, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous communities such as health care, housing and language preservation. Bolsonaro’s order is raising uncertainties about FUNAI by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor.

Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the executive orders “are only the first step on meeting Bolsonaro’s campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business.”

“The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress,” the nonprofit said. “Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers. Not even the military dictatorship, whose treatment of indigenous peoples was ghastly, went that far.”

So these groups are about to lose their rights and their lands, and the next step, history tells us, will be losing their lives.  It's something Donald Trump will be paying very close attention to.

Made In Taiwan

Since wolrd powers are back to using threats and force now, there's no reason why China should be any different.  President Xi Jinping made it very clear today in his response to Taiwan's recent overtures on peaceful reunification that the "lost province" should prepare to rejoin Mother China or else.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, warned Taiwan that unification must be the ultimate goal of any talks over its future and that efforts to assert full independence could be met by armed force, laying out an unyielding position on Wednesday in his first major speech about the contested island democracy.

Mr. Xi outlined his stance one day after Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, urged China to peacefully settle disputes over the island, whose 23 million people, she said, want to preserve their self-rule. But Beijing treats Taiwan as an illegitimate breakaway from Chinese rule, and Mr. Xi said unification was unstoppable as China rose.

“The country is growing strong, the nation is rejuvenating and unification between the two sides of the strait is the great trend of history,” Mr. Xi told officials, military officers and guests in the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

China would respect the Taiwanese people’s religious and legal freedoms in a unified “one country, two systems” framework, Mr. Xi said. But he warned that the profound political differences between Taiwan, a vibrant democracy, and China, a highly authoritarian government, were no excuse to reject unification.

“Different systems are not an obstacle to unification, and even less are they an excuse for separatism,” Mr. Xi said. “The private property, religious beliefs and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwanese compatriots will be fully assured.”

Mr. Xi also accompanied his offer of talks with a warning — one implicitly also aimed at the United States, which provides Taiwan with military equipment and the possibility of support in a crisis.

“We make no promise to abandon the use of force, and retain the option of taking all necessary measures,” Mr. Xi said in a section of the speech that drew rousing applause. Those options, he said, could be used against “intervention by external forces.”

The diverging positions staked out by Mr. Xi and Ms. Tsai have brought into focus how the disputed future of Taiwan remains a volatile question that could erupt into crisis, especially if either side misjudges the intentions of the other — or of the United States, a key ally that has strengthened support for Taiwan.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which handles relations with China, said it did not have an immediate comment on Mr. Xi’s speech.

Since misjudgement is the key feature of the Trump regime, should Washington get involved in this dispute, I almost guarantee it's going to get ugly.  It may get ugly anyway, as Xi has been playing hardball in the China Sea and in Africa during his term and there's no reason to believe that he'll settle for anything less than "reunification".

Add this to the world's potential hotspots in an era of America's influence in freefall.

Introducing The New Romney 3.0

America's favorite failed Uncanny Valley experiment and Trumpian punching bag Mitt Romney will be Utah's junior Republican senator in a few days, and by gum he has a newspaper opinion involving Donald Trump, beep boop.

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions thismonth, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

The world is also watching. America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world. In a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, 84 percent of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed the American president would “do the right thing in world affairs.” One year later, that number had fallen to 16 percent.

This comes at a very unfortunate time. Several allies in Europe are experiencing political upheaval. Several former Soviet satellite states are rethinking their commitment to democracy. Some Asian nations, such as the Philippines, lean increasingly toward China, which advances to rival our economy and our military. The alternative to U.S. world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal.

The world needs American leadership, and it is in America’s interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world — and an America — with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace.

To reassume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. It includes political parties promoting policies that strengthen us rather than promote tribalism by exploiting fear and resentment. Our leaders must defend our vital institutions despite their inevitable failings: a free press, the rule of law, strong churches, and responsible corporations and unions.

Welcome to early 2017, I guess, Mitt.  Meanwhile, remember this?

Mitt's soul left his body several years ago anyway.  Oh, and he apparently still wants a balanced budget.

Good luck with that.

StupidiNews!

• Donald Trump has invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House to discuss the current partial government shutdown today.
• Four people were injured in the German town of Bothhrop when a German man drove his car into a group of Syrian citizens, police believe race may have been a motive.
• House Democrats are expected to vote Thursday on a spending bill that does not include money for Donald Trump's wall, an identical bill passed the Senate in December.
• Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has now assumed duties from fired Gen. James Mattis, Shanahan's first order of business was to praise Donald Trump.
• An Australian mining company says its fully autonomous train system has now logged one million kilometers and is "the largest robot in the world".