Even for Donald Trump, the distance is still fun to think about, up here in his penthouse 600 ft. in the sky,
where it’s hard to make out the regular people below. The ice skaters
swarming Central Park’s Wollman Rink look like old-television static,
and the Fifth Avenue holiday shoppers could be mites in a gutter. To
even see this view, elevator operators, who spend their days standing in
place, must push a button marked 66–68, announcing all three floors of Trump’s princely pad.
Inside, staff members wear cloth slipcovers on their shoes, so as not
to scuff the shiny marble or stain the plush cream carpets.
This is, in short, not a natural place to refine the common touch.
It’s gilded and gaudy, a dreamscape of faded tapestry, antique clocks
and fresco-style ceiling murals of gym-rat Greek gods. The throw pillows
carry the Trump shield, and the paper napkins are monogrammed with the
family name. His closest neighbors, at least at this altitude, are an
international set of billionaire moguls who have decided to stash their
money at One57 and 432 Park, the two newest skyscrapers to remake
midtown Manhattan. There is no tight-knit community in the sky, no
paperboy or postman, no bowling over brews after work.
Photograph by Nadav Kander for TIMEPresident-elect Donald Trump photographed at his penthouse on the 66th floor of Trump Tower in New York City on Nov. 28.
Behind TIME’s Person of the Year Cover
And yet here Trump resides, under dripping crystal, with diamond cuff
links, as the President-elect of the United States of America. The
Secret Service agents milling about prove that it really happened, this
election result few saw coming. Hulking and serious, they gingerly try
to stay on the marble, avoiding the carpets with their uncovered shoes.
On his wife Melania’s desk, next to books of Gianni Versace’s fashions and Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry, a new volume sits front and center: The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families.
For all of Trump’s public life, tastemakers and intellectuals have
dismissed him as a vulgarian and carnival barker, a showman with big
flash and little substance. But what those critics never understood was
that their disdain gave him strength. For years, he fed off the
disrespect and used it to grab more tabloid headlines, to connect to
common people. Now he has upended the leadership of both major political
parties and effectively shifted the political direction of the
international order. He will soon command history’s most lethal
military, along with economic levers that can change the lives of
billions. And the people he has to thank are those he calls “the forgotten,” millions of American voters
who get paid by the hour in shoes that will never touch these
carpets—working folk, regular Janes and Joes, the dots in the distance.
It’s a topic Trump wants to discuss as he settles down in his dining
room, with its two-story ceiling and marble table the length of a
horseshoe pitch: the winning margins he achieved in West Virginia coal country,
the rally crowds that swelled on Election Day, what he calls that
“interesting thing,” the contradiction at the core of his appeal. “What
amazes a lot of people is that I’m sitting in an apartment the likes of
which nobody’s ever seen,” the next President says, smiling. “And yet I represent the workers of the world.”
The late Fidel Castro
would probably spit out his cigar if he heard that one—a billionaire
who branded excess claiming the slogans of the proletariat. But Trump
doesn’t care. “I’m representing them, and they love me and I love them,”
he continues, talking about the people of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and
Pennsylvania, the struggling Rust Belt necklace around the Great Lakes
that delivered his victory. “And here we sit, in very different
circumstances.”
The Last, Greatest Deal
For nearly 17 months on the campaign trail, Trump did what no American
politician had attempted in a generation, with defiant flair. Instead of
painting a bright vision for a unified future, he magnified the
divisions of the present, inspiring new levels of anger and fear within
his country. Whatever you think of the man, this much is undeniable: he
uncovered an opportunity others didn’t believe existed, the last,
greatest deal for a 21st century salesman. The national press, the
late-night comics, the elected leaders, the donors, the corporate chiefs
and a sitting President who prematurely dropped his mic—they all
believed he was just taking the country for a ride.
Now it’s difficult to count all the ways Trump remade the game: the
huckster came off more real than the scripted political pros. The
cable-news addict made pollsters look like chumps. The fabulist
out-shouted journalists fighting to separate fact from falsehood. The demagogue won more Latino and black votes than the 2012 Republican nominee.
Trump found a way to woo white
evangelicals by historic margins, even winning those who attend
religious services every week. Despite boasting on video of sexually
assaulting women, he still found a way to win white females by 9 points.
As a champion of federal entitlements for the poor, tariffs on China
and health care “for everybody,” he dominated among self-described
conservatives. In a country that seemed to be bending toward its
demographic future, with many straining to finally step outside the
darker cycles of history, he proved that tribal instincts never die,
that in times of economic strife and breakneck social change, a
charismatic leader could still find the enemy within and rally the
masses to his side. In the weeks after his victory, hundreds of
incidents of harassment, many using his name—against women, Muslims,
immigrants and racial minorities—were reported across the country.
The starting point for his success, which can be measured with just
tens of thousands of votes, was the most obvious recipe in politics. He
identified the central issue motivating the American electorate and then
convinced a plurality of the voters in the states that mattered that he
was the best person to bring change. “The greatest jobs theft in the
history of the world” was his cause, “I alone can fix it” his unlikely selling point, “great again” his rallying cry.
Since the bungled Iraq War faded into the rearview mirror, there has
been only one defining issue in American presidential politics, spanning
party and ideology. It’s the reason Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth
Warren thunders that “the system is rigged” by the banks, and Vermont’s
Bernie Sanders got so much traction denouncing the greed of
“millionaires and billionaires.” It’s what Marco Rubio meant when he
said, “We are losing the American Dream,” and why Jeb Bush claimed
everyone has a “right to rise.”
Nadav Kander for TIMEPresident-elect
Trump in the living room of his three-story penthouse on the 66th floor
of Trump Tower in New York City on Nov. 28
President Barack Obama identified it early, back in 2005, as a newly
elected Senator delivering a commencement speech at tiny Knox College in
Galesburg, Ill. Obama’s hymn to “the forgotten” was his ticket to the
White House. “You know what this new challenge is. You’ve seen it,” he
said. “The fact that when you drive by the old Maytag plant around
lunchtime, no one walks out anymore … It’s as if someone changed the
rules in the middle of the game and no one bothered to tell these
folks.”
As Obama explained it, the American promise was being put up on
cinder blocks, buttressed by massive economic forces. His vow, repeated
in his final 30-minute-long television ad in 2008, was change for the
struggling, help for those who needed it, security for the ones who felt
themselves slipping. Four years later, he would return to the same
playbook to defeat Mitt Romney, casting the Republican nominee as an
obtuse private-equity moneybags aiming to bankrupt Detroit. A quote
pulled from a focus group—”I’m working harder and falling behind”—became
the watchwords of Obama’s 2012 re-elect, hung on walls and placed atop
PowerPoints. He had identified the issue, and as long as his name was on
the ballot, no one could beat him.
But Obama never fully delivered the prosperity he promised. There was
certainly help on the margins, slowing cost growth for health care and
providing insurance to millions, for example. He started some pilot
projects for manufacturing hubs, increased incomes marginally in the
past couple of years and led the nation to recover from a vicious
recession, with the federal government directly creating or saving
millions of jobs. An unemployment rate that peaked at 10% in October
2009 has been halved to 4.6% now, at the end of his term. But the great
weather systems of global change continued under his watch. Ultimately,
he grew resigned to the fact that there was only so much he could do in
office.
The most recently available data tells the remarkable story: between
2001 and 2012, the median incomes of households headed by people without
college degrees—nearly two-thirds of all homes—fell as they aged,
according to research by Robert Shapiro, an economist who advised Bill
Clinton’s 1992 campaign. As American productivity and gross domestic
product grew in the first decade of the new century, median wages for
all Americans broke away, effectively flatlining. Most Americans making
less than the median income, but not so
little as to qualify for poverty benefits, suffered income losses of
about 5% between 2007 and 2013, according to research by Branko
Milanovic, a former World Bank economist.
If you lived in the nation’s great cities or held a college degree,
you probably didn’t feel the full fury of these forces. Average income
declines for top earners were closer to 1% during the postrecession
years. Global change is tricky that way. It enriches those in the
developed world who can handle bits and bytes, create something new or
sell their work at a distance. And it elevates the fortunes of the
global poor, largely in Asia, pushing about a billion people from
poverty into the beginnings of a new China-led middle class.
But for the working men and women of developed countries, many of
whom had made good livings in the 20th century, the price of others’
success could be seen all around, in peeling house paint and closed
storefronts, in towns that went belly-up when one of the two big
employers closed shop. The pressures pushed across the Atlantic Ocean.
The size of the middle classes, as measured by those who earn 25% above
or below the median income, dropped in the U.S. from the 1980s to 2013.
It also dropped in Spain and Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. It is
no accident that all those countries now find themselves in the midst
of political upheaval as well.
The reasons for the shifts are more complex than the simple
offshoring of manufacturing plants to Mexico or China. Global trade and
new technology also pressure wages on jobs beyond the assembly line.
When combined with rising health-insurance costs and incessant
shareholder demands, companies found themselves unable or unwilling to
give raises. Automation also accelerated as factories turned to robots,
checkout lines retooled with self-operated terminals, and engineers
developed self-driving trucks and taxis. Political gridlock in
Washington, and the mild austerity it created, weighed everything down.
‘I hoped for change and never saw it’
But properly diagnosing the problem doesn’t help much if you live in a
place that has taken it on the chin. In Shiawassee County, Michigan,
which sits like a pit stop between Flint and Lansing, Obama won
comfortably in 2008 and by a narrow margin in 2012. Then Trump tromped
to victory this year with a 20-point margin. Rick Mengel, a 69-year-old
retired pipe fitter, was one of the union members who voted for the
young Illinois Senator in 2008, after seeing him promise to renegotiate
the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Obama once called
“devastating” and a “big mistake.”
“I hoped for change and never saw it,” Mengel says of the Obama
years. “I watched jobs go away, and any jobs that came in were at
McDonald’s. I’m not knocking McDonald’s, but it’s a starter job. It
doesn’t make the car or house payments.” When a friend bought him a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat this year, Mengel took to wearing it everywhere he went. He never believed the polls that said Hillary Clinton
would carry Michigan, because he can’t remember ever sitting down with a
group of five or six people and finding more than one for her. “Hillary
came along and she just never said what she was going to do,” Mengel
explains. “She just talked bad about Trump.”
First he needed to define the bad guys. then he needed to knock them over.
Such voices were easy to find in central Michigan, northeast
Pennsylvania and western Wisconsin in the days after the election. Here
were historically Democratic counties that Obama had won twice, only to
see Trump then win comfortably. They are mostly white parts of the
country, with struggling Main Streets and low college-graduation rates,
where the local beauty salons do better business than the car dealers.
They are places where people start their life stories by recounting the
good-paying jobs their grandparents held, or the long-gone second homes
up on the lake where they used to play as kids. In the 1970s, the bumper
stickers on trucks in Prairie du Chien, Wis., would read LIVE BETTER. WORK UNION. Now the sign in the local Walmart says, SAVE MONEY. LIVE BETTER.
Joseph Dougherty, a former Democratic mayor of Nanticoke, Pa. who
manages an automotive paint store, switched his voter registration this
year for Trump. He was one of many in Luzerne County, a gorgeous river
valley of rolling hills and former coal mines, who had lost patience.
Trump cleared 78,000 votes in these hills, 20,000 more than Romney. “The
Democratic Party forgot about its base. It’s all less for us and more
for someone else,” Dougherty said, explaining how he could betray the
party he was born into. “People are tired of surviving. People want to
go on vacation, improve their home, get a better car, invest in their
children’s future.”
Economists looking at the voting patterns since Election Day have
been able to draw clear correlations between the local effects of
international trade and voter angst. In counties where Chinese imports
grew between 2002 and 2014, the vote for Trump increased over the vote
George W. Bush won in 2000. For every percentage-point increase in
imports, the economists found an average 2-point increase for the
Republican nominee.
In some places, the shift was even steeper. In Branch County,
Michigan, near the Indiana border, about halfway between Detroit and
Chicago, a 3% increase in Chinese imports coincided with an 11% bump for
Trump over Bush. The message of renewed protectionism, new tariffs and
scrapped trade agreements broke through. “His approach was much more
visceral,” says David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
economist, who co-authored the study. “He seemed to say, ‘We don’t have
to adapt to globalization. We can reverse it.'”
It’s hard to find any trained economist who believes that’s possible,
at least in the terms Trump uses. The supply chains are too broadly
dispersed, the pricing efficiencies too embedded in our lives, the
robots too cost-effective. Then there are the dangers of massive
disruption, the unquantifiable costs of trade wars, or the actual wars that could follow.
But Trump’s improvement on Obama’s sales pitch was never about the
details. He communicated on a deeper level, something he has done all
his life. His was not a campaign about the effects of tariffs on the
price of batteries or basketball shoes. He spoke only of winning and
losing, us and them, the strong and the weak. Trump is a student of the
tabloids, a master of television. He had moonlighted as a professional
wrestler. He knew how to win the crowd. First he needed to define the
bad guys. Then he needed to knock them over.
The Presidency as Improv
On Dec. 1, just weeks after his victory, Trump traveled to Indiana to
announce that United Technologies, the 45th largest company in the
country, had agreed to his demands and would retain 800 Carrier
manufacturing jobs in Indianapolis. This mostly fulfilled a campaign
promise he had made after the factory became national news when video
shot inside showed the despair of workers discovering their work was
headed to Mexico. “Companies are not going to leave the United States
anymore without consequences,” he declared at the plant.
Three days earlier, Trump met with TIME in his towering dining room.
The Carrier deal was basically done, thanks to a mixture of $7 million
in state tax breaks, presidential threats and promises of tax and
regulatory reform. But it was still a secret. His running mate, former
Indiana governor Mike Pence, declined to discuss the deal when a
reporter ran into him in Trump’s high-rise kitchen. But Trump could not
stop himself. “I’m going to give you this off the record,” he said. “You
can use it if they announce.”
For both conservative and liberal ideologues, including Sarah Palin
and Bernie Sanders, the deal Trump struck with Carrier was an
abomination, an example of government using taxpayer money to pick
winners and losers. But as Trump told the story in his tower, ideology
had nothing to do with it. This was just another tale of a little guy
getting his voice heard.
“So the other night, I’m watching the news,” Trump began. NBC’s
Lester Holt had introduced a segment on the Carrier plant featuring a
union representative and a plant worker talking in a bar. The man looked
at the camera and spoke to Trump, saying, “We want you to do what you
said you were going to do.” Trump claimed this shocked him: “I said, I
never said they weren’t going to move, to myself.”
But of course he had, as the news segment demonstrated. So Trump says
he had no choice. He had to listen to his people. “He energized me,
that man,” the President-elect explained. “And I called up the head of
United Technologies.”
Shortly after he spoke those words, Reince Priebus, the next White
House chief of staff, walked into the room. With the tape recorders
rolling, Trump began to issue new instructions. “Hey, Reince, I want to
get a list of companies that have announced
they’re leaving,” he called out. “I can call them myself. Five minutes
apiece. They won’t be leaving. O.K.?”
He was talking as if he had just realized—at that moment, in the
middle of an interview—that he had the power to do what he promised to
do on the campaign trail. But it was just a show. At that point, Trump
had already had a similar talk with Bill Ford of Ford Motor Co., and he
boasted of putting out three other calls out to corporations with
outsourcing plans.
This is the presidency as improv, as performance art, with good guys,
bad guys and suspense. It’s a new thing for the United States of
America. The reporters in the room, the voters who will read this
article, the nation, the world—we are the audience. A quick study who
grew up in Kenosha, Wis., Priebus is far too Midwestern to be mistaken
for a showman. But he got what Trump was trying to do, and smiled. “It
worked for you last time,” he told the boss.
Missing the Message
History will record that Clinton foresaw the economic forces that
allowed Trump to win. What she and her team never fully understood was
the depth of the populism Trump was peddling, the idea that the elites
were arrayed against regular people, and that he, the great man, the
strong man, the offensive man, the disruptive man, the entertaining man,
could remake the physics of an election.
“You cannot underestimate the role of the backlash against political
correctness—the us vs. the elite,” explains Kellyanne Conway, who worked
as Trump’s final campaign manager. His previous campaign chairman, Paul
Manafort, put it somewhat more delicately: “We always felt comfortable
that when people were criticizing him for being so outspoken, the
American voters were hearing him too.”
Meet the Voters Who Helped Put Donald Trump in the White House
Lise Sarfati for TIME
1 of 9
In June 2015, Clinton’s pollster Joel Benenson laid out the state of
the country in a private memo to senior staff that was later released to
the public by WikiLeaks. The picture of voters was much the same as the
one he had described to Obama in 2008 and 2012. “When they look to the
future, they see growing obstacles, but nobody having their back,”
Benenson wrote. “They can’t keep up; they work hard but can’t move
ahead.” The top priority he listed for voters was “protecting American
jobs here at home.”
That message anchored the launch of Clinton’s campaign, and it was
woven through her three debate performances. But in the closing weeks,
she shifted to something else. No presidential candidate in American
history had done or said so many outlandish and offensive things as
Trump. He cheered when protesters got hit at his rallies, used sexist
insults for members of the press, argued that an American judge should
be disqualified from a case because of his Mexican heritage. He would
tell an allegory about Muslim refugees entering the U.S. that cast those
families fleeing violence as venomous snakes, waiting to sink their
fangs into “tenderhearted” women. And he would match those stories
with bloody tales of undocumented immigrants from Mexico who murdered
Americans in cold blood. “His disregard for the values that make our
country great is profoundly dangerous,” Clinton argued.
His rhetoric had in fact opened up a new public square, where racists
and misogynists could boast of their views and claim themselves
validated. And to further enrage many Americans, Trump regularly peddled
falsehoods, without offering any evidence, and then refused to back
down from his claims. He promised to sue the dozen women who came
forward to say they had been sexually mistreated by him over the years.
He said he might not accept the outcome of the election if it did not go
his way. He described a crime wave gripping the country based on a
selective reading of statistics.
For a Clinton campaign aiming to re-create Obama’s winning
coalitions, all of this proved too large a target to pass up. Clinton
had proved to be a subpar campaigner, so with the FBI restarting and
reclosing a criminal investigation into her email habits, her closing
message focused on a moral argument about Trump’s character. “Our core
values are being tested in this election,” she said in Philadelphia, the
night before the election. “We know enough about my opponent. We know
who he is. The real question for us is what kind of country we want to
be.”
The strategy worked, in a way. Clinton got about 2.5 million more
votes than Trump, and on Election Day, more than 6 in 10 voters told
exit pollsters that Trump lacked the temperament for the job of
President. But the strategy also placed Clinton too far away from the
central issue in the nation: the steady decline of the American standard
of living. She lost the places that mattered most. “There’s a
difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you,”
Conway helpfully explained after it was over.
Stanley Greenberg, the opinion-research guru for Bill Clinton in
1992, put out a poll around Election Day and found clear evidence that
Clinton’s decision to divert her message from the economy in the final
weeks cost her the decisive vote in the Rust Belt. “The data does not
support the idea that the white working class was inevitably lost,”
Greenberg wrote, “until the Clinton campaign stopped talking about
economic change and asked people to vote for unity, temperament and
experience, and to continue on President Obama’s progress.”
Interestingly, Greenberg said turnout among young, minority and
unmarried female voters also decreased when the economic message Obama
had used fell away.
Anecdote, Not Analysis
The irony of this conclusion is profound. By seeking to condemn the dark
side of politics, Clinton’s campaign may have accidently validated it.
By believing in the myth that Obama’s election represented a permanent
shift for the nation, they proved it was ephemeral. In the end, Trump
reveled in these denunciations, which helped him market to his core
supporters his determination to smash the existing elite. After the
election, Trump’s campaign CEO Stephen Bannon—the former head
of a website known for stirring racial animus and provoking liberal
outrage—explained it simply. “Darkness is good,” he told the Hollywood Reporter.
Nadav Kander for TIMEThe Rabble-Rouser:
The former head of Breitbart, Stephen Bannon has pushed for a darker,
more divisive populism, publishing articles that stirred racial animus.
He will be a senior adviser at the White House.
This is the method of a demagogue. The more the elites denounced his
transgressions, the more his growing movement felt validated. Shortly
after the campaign, Trump tweeted that 3 million votes had been cast
illegally on Nov. 8, a false claim for which he has offered no hard
evidence. But when asked about it in his penthouse, he seems eager to
talk about the controversy he stirred. “I’ve seen many, many
complaints,” he says. “Tremendous numbers of complaints.”
In the dining room, a TIME reporter reads to Trump one of Obama’s
oft-stated quotes about trying to appeal to the country’s better angels
and to fight its tribal instincts. Trump promptly stops the interview in
its tracks. The human brain is wired for anecdote, not analysis, and
Trump’s whole career is a testament to this insight. Even when his
business failures mounted, he could always boast about the ratings of
his hit reality show, The Apprentice, or that time he finished
construction on the Wollman ice rink outside his window. “So let me go
upstairs for one second and get you one newspaper article,” he says. “Do
you mind if I take a one-second break?” And then he disappears into his
living quarters above.
He returns a few minutes later with that morning’s copy of Newsday,
the Long Island tabloid. The front-page headline reads, “EXTREMELY
VIOLENT” GANG FACTION, with an article about a surge of local crime by
foreign-born assailants. His point, it seems, is that the world is
zero-sum, full of the irredeemable killers that Obama’s idealism fails
to see. The details are more compelling than any big picture. “They come
from Central America. They’re tougher than any people you’ve ever met,”
Trump says. “They’re killing and raping everybody out there. They’re
illegal. And they are finished.”
A reporter mentions that what Trump is saying echoes the rhetoric of
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has overseen the extrajudicial
killing of thousands of alleged drug dealers and users in recent
months. The President-elect offers no objection to the comparison.
“Well, hey, look, this is bad stuff,” he says. “They slice them up, they
carve their initials in the girl’s forehead, O.K. What are we supposed
to do? Be nice about it?”
Days later, Trump will have a phone call with the Philippine
President, who called President Obama the “son of a whore” a few months
ago. A readout from the Philippine government subsequently announces
that during the call, Trump praised Duterte’s deadly drug crackdown as
“the right way.”
Populism Takes Center Stage
A year from now, when Trump travels to the U.N. to address the world’s
leaders, he is likely to find far more sympathy for this hard-edged
populism than any thought possible in 2008. Trump is all but rooting for
it. “People are proud of their countries, and I think you will see
nationalism,” he says, before describing the growing backlash against
Muslim migration in France, Belgium and
Germany. “A lot of people reject some of the ideas that are being forced
on them. And that’s certainly one of the reasons you had this vote,
having to do not with the European Union but the same thing.”
In this view, Trump will find common cause with Vladimir Putin, the
authoritarian President of Russia who, like Trump, seeks to challenge
diplomatic and democratic norms. For reasons that remain unclear, Trump
still refuses to acknowledge the U.S. intelligence community’s
conclusion that Putin’s agencies were responsible for stealing the
Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails released on
WikiLeaks. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they interfered,” Trump
says. Asked if he thought the conclusion of America’s spies was
politically driven, Trump says, “I think so.” Since the election, Trump
has chosen not to consistently make himself available for intelligence
briefings, say aides.
He has also so far refused to acknowledge established diplomatic
boundaries. When the Pakistani government gave a long, apparently
verbatim readout of its President’s call with Trump, India’s leaders
reacted with strained nerves. Then Trump accepted a phone call from
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, intentionally discarding a policy
enforced since Jimmy Carter, which prompted an official complaint from
China. In response, he sent out a tweet suggesting that such
formalities, a bow to Chinese sensibilities, were ridiculous.
“Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military
equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call,” it read.
As he proved in the campaign, there are sometimes few negative
consequences in politics for offending or painting a false picture of
reality. History suggests the same is less true in international
relations, where the stakes are not just votes at the ballot box but
also the movement of armies and the lives of citizens. Among the tight
circle that has formed around Trump, one can sense some unease as they
try to navigate a mercurial boss to a successful first term. There is
talk of strategies for steering him when he is wrong, for appealing to
his own intention to succeed. And Trump himself, true to his
reality-show persona, has a history of allowing his staff to fight among
themselves for his attention. “If I had to describe his deliberating
style, I would say that it’s very similar to Socratic method, just like
in law school,” explains Priebus. “He asks a lot of questions, he wants
answers to those questions to be thorough and quick, and he relies on
the people giving him the answers to be accurate.”
Just a day earlier, Conway had gone on television to suggest that
picking Romney, an old Trump foe, for Secretary of State was a terrible
idea. Some Trump aides told reporters that this amounted to a betrayal
of the boss, who had not yet made up his mind. Trump seemed to enjoy the
spectacle. “I might not like it, but I thought it was fine,” he says at
the dining-room table. “Otherwise I would have called her up.”
Nadav Kander for TIMEThe Reconciler:
After serving as Republican chair during the chaotic campaign, Reince
Priebus will become Trump’s first White House chief of staff, acting as a
bridge to the Washington establishment. The Trump Whisperer: A
former resident of one of Trump’s buildings, pollster Kellyanne Conway
became his campaign manager in August. She is known for her blunt
advice, sometimes through TV appearances.
At the same time, Trump has tried to
curtail some of his own bravado since the campaign. The day after the
election, Priebus says, Trump told his aides in his apartment, “Guys,
I’m for everybody in this country.” Last year, Trump boasted about the
great instincts that led him to support forced deportation for all
undocumented immigrants and a ban on Muslims from entering the country.
He has since backed off both positions. “I mean, I’ve had some bad
moments in the campaign,” he says. But then he notes that his poll
numbers seemed to rise after several of them, including his insults of
Arizona Senator John McCain’s war service.
Trump claims that his unpredictability will be his strength in
office. It certainly has left the political world guessing. He has so
far refused to describe how he will separate himself from the conflict
of owning a company and employing his children who do regular business
with foreigners. On the one hand, he supports a broad policy platform
shared by conservatives in Congress: a reduction in regulations, lower
taxes, a pull back from the fight against global warming, and a cabinet
filled with free-market ideologues. On the other hand, he has signaled
that he is willing to break from Republican doctrine. His designated
Treasury Secretary, the former Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin, has
said Trump would back off his campaign suggestion that he would give
large net tax windfalls to the wealthiest. “Any reductions we have in
upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions,” Mnuchin said.
While Trump offered public words of support for the Iraq War at the
time, he sees George W. Bush’s great adventure as a disaster now. He
rejects wholesale the social conservative campaign to keep transgender
people out of the bathrooms they choose, but promises to reward
conservative ideologues with a Supreme Court Justice of their liking.
And he has little patience for the organizing principle of the Tea
Party: the idea that the federal government must live within its means
and lower its debts. Instead, he seems to favor expensive new
infrastructure spending and tax cuts as economic stimulus, much like
Obama did in 2009. “Well, sometimes you have to prime the pump,” he
says. “So sometimes in order to get jobs going and the country going,
because, look, we’re at 1% growth.” The next day, the third-quarter
gross-domestic-product estimates would be released, showing an increase
of 3.2%, up from 1.4% earlier in the year.
He also suggests that some stock analysts may have misread his
intentions. The value of biotechnology stocks, for example, which enjoy
large profit margins under current law, rose 9% in the day after Trump’s
election, a rally of relief that the price controls Clinton had
proposed would not happen. But Trump says his goal has not wavered. “I’m
going to bring down drug prices,” he says. “I don’t like what has
happened with drug prices.”
As for the people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as youths and now have work visas under Obama,
Trump did not back off his pledge to end Obama’s executive orders. But
he made clear he would like to find some future accommodation for them.
“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and
proud,” he says, showing a sympathy for young migrants that was often
absent during the campaign. “They got brought here at a very young age,
they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good
students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land
because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Nadav Kander for TIMEThe True Believer:
A devout evangelical Christian and a former leader in the U.S. House,
Vice President–elect Mike Pence will help Trump navigate the agendas of
conservative lawmakers and activists.
Trump’s America, for Better and Worse
The truth is no one really knows what is going to happen, up to and
including the occupants of Trump Tower. “It’s a very exciting time. It’s
really been an amazing time,” Trump says, as the country still tries to
come to terms with what he accomplished. “Hopefully we can take some of
the drama out.”
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Following a President who
prided himself on sifting drama through the sieve of careful
consideration, Trump’s methods, for better and worse, tend to be closer
to the opposite. And this is now Trump’s America to run, a victory made
possible either because of historical inevitability or individual
brilliance, or some combination of the two.
It’s an America with rising stock markets despite the tremors of a
trade war. A country where a few jobs saved makes up, in the moment, for
the thousands still departing. This is a land where a man will stand up
in a plane headed to Allentown, Pa., to demand allegiance to the new
leader—”We got some Hillary bitches on here? Come on man, Trump! He’s
your President, every goddamn one of you!”—and then get banned by the
airline from ever traveling again. It’s where a hijab-wearing college
student in New York reports being attacked and jeered at in the next
President’s name, where American-born children ask their citizen parents
if Trump will deport them, where white supremacists throw out Nazi
salutes in Washington meeting halls for their President-elect.
It’s a country where many who felt powerless have a new champion,
where much frustration has given way to excitement and where politics
has become the greatest show on earth. Here men in combat helmets and
military assault rifles now patrol the streets outside a golden
residential tower in midtown Manhattan. And almost every day at about
the same time they let pass a street performer who wears no pants, tight
white underwear and cowboy boots, so he can sing a song in the lobby
for the television cameras with Trump’s name written in red and blue on
his butt. It’s an America of renewed hope and paralyzing fear, a country
few expected less than a year ago. Because of Donald John Trump,
whatever happens next, it will never be like it was before.
—With reporting by Zeke J. Miller/New York; Elizabeth
Dias/Saginaw, Mich.; Haley Sweetland Edwards/Nanticoke, Pa.; and Karl
Vick/Lancaster, Wis.
#A STRONG NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION
COALITION OF I) 487 THOUSANDS OF BRAZILIAN
DEMONSTRATORS TOOK THE STREETS SUPPORTING
JUDICARY &
II) THE PARALLEL BRAZILIAN JUDGES MOVEMENT A FEW DAYS BEFORE &
III)RECENT INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED ACHIEVEENTS OF BRAZIL INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNIZED
ACHIEVEMENTS OF BRAZIL’S CARWASH TASK FORCE WHICH WINS TRANSPARENCY INTERANTIONAL
ANTI- CORRUPTION AWARD
Thousands protest corruption,
support judiciary in Brazil
Silvia Izquierdo / AP
A woman dressed in the likeness of a police officer
Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, shouts slogans during a protest against corruption on
Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thousands of protesters crowded
Rio de Janeiro’s beachfront to express disgust with public corruption and to
support the judges and prosecutors pursuing those crimes.
By Ernesto Moreno Quintana and Sarah DiLorenzo,
Associated Press
Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016 | 6:03 p.m.
Rio de Janeiro —
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in
cities across Brazil on Sunday to express disgust with public corruption and
outrage at what they say are lawmakers' attempts to muzzle the judges and
prosecutors pursuing those crimes.
Protesters, many dressed in the green and yellow of
Brazil's flag, massed along a major artery in Sao Paulo and along Copacabana
beach in Rio de Janeiro. Other protests were held in cities around the country.
Many demonstrators wore T-shirts or held banners in support of Sergio Moro, the
judge who has led a hard-charging investigation into a kickback scheme
involving the national oil company, several construction conglomerates and
politicians.
The investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, has
shocked Brazilians both for the scale of corruption it has revealed and for the
commitment of the judiciary to see it through in a country where many feel the
rich and powerful act with impunity.
But Sunday's demonstrations also united a motley group
of protesters whose only common cause appeared to be disgust with elected
officials. They represented a cross-section of an increasingly fractured
Brazil. In addition to those supporting the corruption investigation, some held
signs calling for the removal from office of the president and leaders in
Congress. Some called for the jailing of a former president now facing
corruption charges. Still others were advocating a return to military rule.
"I want people who have character running the
country," said Regina Medeiros, a 67-year-old retiree, who held a banner
that read: "Let's finish with political parties before they finish
Brazil." ''People are losing faith in other human beings," she added.
Around 15,000 people protested in Sao Paulo, according
to an estimate from military police; they said they did not have a number for
demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro. At least another 40,000 people came out in
scores of other cities around Brazil, including the capital of Brasilia,
according to estimates from military police published by the G1 news portal.
Many hoped that after former President Dilma Rousseff
was impeached and removed from office earlier this year, Brazilian politics
would settle, and reforms proposed by the new president might pull the economy
out of deep recession. But instead, those reforms have met with significant
protests, President Michel Temer has seen his popularity plummet, and the
economic crisis appears to be worsening.
Through it all, accusations of corruption against
former or current leaders seem to come weekly. Scandal has touched several
members of Temer's Cabinet, and six have resigned. Meanwhile, anger at the
scale of corruption and frustration with the impotence of the government to
address it is rising.
The one bright spot appeared to be the tenacity of the
judiciary and its determination to see through Operation Car Wash.
But last week, the prosecutors leading that
investigation threatened to quit, accusing Congress of passing legislation that
would leave them vulnerable to retribution from those they have prosecuted. The
measure, approved in a marathon overnight session in the lower house of
Congress as part of a package of anti-corruption laws, would allow defendants
to accuse prosecutors and judges of abusing their authority.
"In the middle of the night, the house of
deputies disfigured this (anti-corruption) project. Instead of punishing the
corrupt, they want to punish investigating prosecutors and judges," said
Agnes Musseliner, a prosecutor who attended the protest in Rio. "We are
here to protest against this absurdity, to guarantee the independence of the
public prosecutor's office and Brazilian judicial authority."
The package was proposed by the public prosecutor
earlier this year and included measures that would toughen penalties for
corruption and accelerate the handling of corruption cases in courts. But in
its overnight session, held while Brazil was mourning the deaths in a plane
crash of members of a beloved soccer team, the lower house of Congress dropped
some of the toughest measures, like allowing prosecutors to reach more plea
bargains, in addition to adding the one that allows prosecutors and judges to
be charged with abuse of power.
Paola Augusta Mariano Margues, a 31-year-old
prosecutor in Sao Paulo, said the measure could have a chilling effect on
investigations because it could leave prosecutors vulnerable when
investigations don't lead to charges.
Moro has called it an effort to intimidate the
judiciary and halt Operation Car Wash before it implicates any more lawmakers.
He pleaded with the Senate not to pass it, and judges and prosecutors are
asking the president not to sign if it does.
"Sergio Moro, we are with you," read a giant
banner at the Sao Paulo protest, where demonstrators frequently chanted his
name.
Brazilian Judges and prosecutors protest against
changes in anti-corruption Law
Board withdrew six proposals from the MPF and defaced the project. It included
possible punishment of magistrates for abuse of authority.
Judges and prosecutors protest against changes in anti-corruption package
Judges and prosecutors protest against changes in anti-corruption Law.
Judges and prosecutors protested in front of the Federal Supreme Court (STF)
early Thursday afternoon against the approval of amendments that amend
anti-corruption measures. The package with the amendments was approved by the
Chamber of Deputies at dawn on Wednesday (30). Among the changes is the
withdrawal of the criminalization of the crime of illicit enrichment and the
inclusion of the crime of responsibility to magistrates and members of the
Public Prosecutor's Office who commit some type of abuse of authority. Protests
were also held in cities of Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul and
São Paulo.
Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP) made a statement on the back staircase of
the STF building, where members of the judiciary were concentrated. "The
Congress is trying to impose a gag on the prosecution and the country's judges,"
he said. "It was approved in the dead of night to build an accessory
instrument of impunity."
Judges and prosecutors protest in Mexico City against changes in
anti-corruption Law
"Those who suffer in prisons and do not have the money to pay big
lawyers have always needed projects against abuses of power, and Congress has
never given them," he added. According to him, a substitute will be
presented to the project against abuse of power. "Debating this at the
time of the biggest fight against corruption is trying to stop the
bleeding."
The president of the Associative Front of the Magistracy and the Public
Prosecution, Norma Cavalcanti, delivered a letter to the president of the
Supreme Court, Minister Carmen Lúcia (see the full document). The text declares
support for the Federal institutions and asks the STF to defend the autonomy
and independence of the MP and judges.
"We have come to tell the minister that we are fighting corruption and
impunity. The independence of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the judiciary
is a constitutional guarantee of citizenship and must be considered the
patrimony of the nation, because it belongs to the people," he said. Upon
receiving the letter, Carmen Lúcia said she would read "carefully"
and that the Supreme Court is "fighting for the Constitution to be
guaranteed."
The president of the National Association of Labor Attorneys, Ângelo Fabiano
Farias da Costa, criticized Senate President Renan Calheiros's attempt to rush
the vote of the measures by the House plenary this afternoon. "It is a
real slap in the face of Brazilian society. They have made the ten measures
against corruption a pro-corruption project," he said.
Magistrates exhibit Brazilian flag and poster during protest against changes in
corruption package (Photo: Luiza Garonce / G1) Magistrates exhibit Brazilian
flag and poster during protest against changes in corruption package (Photo:
Luiza Garonce / G1)
Magistrates exhibit Brazil's flag and poster during protest against changes in
corruption package (Photo: Luiza Garonce / G1)
After the pronouncement of senators and prosecutors, the magistrates
sang the national anthem to the chapel. The magistrates left the back of the
STF hand in hand, making a chain around the building, and returned to the
front. Meanwhile, indigenous people danced in circles in front of the building.
They tied a strip, facing the court, with the words "we want to live in
peace, no destruction in the Amazon."
The president of the National Association of Attorneys General, José Robalinho
Cavalcanti, said that the Chamber session that approved amendments to the
anti-corruption bill was one of the "most aggressive and superficial"
sessions in 30 years. "If the deputies wanted to give a message to the
people, it is opposite to what the people wanted to hear."
According to the elected vice-president of the Association of Magistrates of
Brazil (AMB), Renata Gil, the text needs to be revised. "Abuse of
authority is not new, people are punished, but norms in this text have been
included that are not republican."
Asked what the AMB's performance if the bill is approved by the Senate without
reservations, Renata said she "trusts in the Federal Senate," but
will take the legal measures to revert the decision. On the performance of
Renan Calheiros, who tried to rush the vote on the package on Wednesday (30),
the magistrate said she was surprised.
"We have been at the beginning of the week trying to show that there are
extremely expensive issues for society. We were very sad, too, because we were
open to dialogue and we were not reciprocated," he said. "The texts
were presented at the last minute without the class being aware of the content,
and the votes were expressed. The approved text arrived late yesterday
afternoon in the Senate, and the president tried for immediate approval in the
middle of a scenario of Punishment of corrupt and corrupt agents. We
magistrates denote a serious intention of intimidation. "
Juízes e promotores protestam contra mudanças
em pacote anticorrupção
Câmara retirou seis propostas do MPF e desfigurou projeto. Foi incluída
possível punição a magistrados por abuso de autoridade.
Por G1 DF
01/12/2016 15h52 Atualizado
01/12/2016 20h23
Juízes e promotores
protestaram em frente ao Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) no início da tarde
desta quinta-feira (1º) contra a aprovação das emendas que alteram as medidas
de combate corrupção. O pacote com as alterações
foi aprovado pela Câmara dos Deputadosna madrugada desta quarta (30). Entre as mudanças, está a retirada da
tipificação do crime de enriquecimento ilícito e a inclusão do crime de
responsabilidade a magistrados e membros do Ministério Público que cometerem
algum tipo de abuso de autoridade. Protestos também foram realizados em cidades
de Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul e São Paulo.
O senador Randolfe
Rodrigues (Rede-AP) fez um pronunciamento na escadaria dos fundos do prédio do
STF, onde estavam concentrados membros do judiciário. “O Congresso está
tentando impor uma mordaça no Ministério Público e nos juízes do país",
afirmou. "Foi aprovada na calada da noite a construção de um instrumento
acessório da impunidade.”
Juízes e promotores
protestam no DF contra mudanças em pacote anticorrupção
"Abuso de autoridade
existe nesse país há muito tempo contra pobres. Aqueles que padecem nos
presídios e não têm dinheiro para pagar grandes advogados sempre precisaram de
projetos contra abusos de poder, e o Congresso nunca lhes deu", completou
o senador. Segundo ele, será apresentado um substitutivo ao projeto contra
abuso de poder. "Debater isso no momento em que se processa o maior
combate à corrupção é tentar estancar a sangria.”
A presidente da Frente
Associativa da Magistratura e do Ministério Público, Norma Cavalcanti, entregou
uma carta à presidente do STF, ministra Carmen Lúcia (veja a íntegra do documento). O texto declara apoio às instituições
Federais e pede ao STF que defenda a autonomia e a independência do MP e
juízes.
"Viemos dizer à
ministra que combatemos a corrupção e a impunidade. A independência do
Ministério Público e do Judiciário é uma garantia constitucional da cidadania e
deve ser considerada patrimônio da nação, porque pertence ao povo", disse.
Ao receber a carta, Carmen Lúcia disse que leria "com todo o cuidado"
e que o Supremo está "lutando para que a Constituição seja
garantida".
O presidente da Associação
Nacional dos Procuradores do Trabalho, Ângelo Fabiano Farias da Costa, criticou
a tentativa do presidente do Senado, Renan Calheiros, de apressar a votação das
medidas pelo plenário da casa na tarde desta quarta. "É um verdadeiro tapa
na cara da sociedade brasileira. Tornaram as dez medidas contra a corrupção um
projeto pró-corrupção", disse.
Magistrados exibem bandeira
do Brasil e cartaz durante protesto contra mudanças no pacote corrupção (Foto:
Luiza Garonce/G1)
Após o pronunciamento de
senadores e procuradores, os magistrados cantaram o hino nacional à capela. Os
magistrados deixaram a parte de trás do STF de mãos dadas, fazendo uma corrente
em volta do prédio, e voltaram para a fachada. Enquanto isso, indígenas dançavam
em círculos em frente ao prédio. Eles amarraram uma faixa, virada para o
tribunal, com os dizeres "queremos viver em paz. Nada de destruição na
Amazônia".
O presidente da Associação
Nacional dos Procuradores da República, José Robalinho Cavalcanti, disse que a
sessão da Câmara que aprovou as emendas ao projeto anticorrupção foi uma das
sessões "mais agressivas e mais superficiais" em 30 anos. "Se os
deputados queriam passar um recado ao povo, é oposto ao que o povo queria
ouvir."
De acordo com a vice-presidente
eleita da Associação dos Magistrados do Brasil (AMB), Renata Gil, o texto
precisa ser revisto. "Abuso de autoridade não é novidade, as pessoas são
punidas, mas tem sido incluídas normas neste texto que não são
republicanas."
Questionada sobre o que a
atuação da AMB caso o projeto seja aprovado pelo Senado sem ressalvas, Renata
afirmou que "confia no Senado Federal", mas tomará as medidas
jurídicas cabíveis para reverter a decisão. Sobre a atuação de Renan Calheiros,
que tentou apressar a votação do pacote nesta quarta (30), a magistrada disse
ter sido surpreendida.
"Estamos desde o
início da semana tentando mostrar que existem temas extremamente caros à
sociedade. Ficamos muito tristes, também, porque nos mostramos abertos ao
diálogo e não fomos correspondidos", disse. "Os textos foram
apresentados de última hora sem que a classe tivesse o conhecimento do
conteúdo, e as votações foram expressas. O texto aprovado chegou no final da
tarde de ontem no Senado, e o presidente tentou a aprovação imediata em meio a
um cenário de punição de agentes corruptos e corruptores. Nós, magistrados,
denotamos uma grave intenção de intimidação."
Outros estados Em Curitiba, onde são
julgados os processos da Lava Jato em primeira instância, juízes também protestaram contra
as mudanças no projeto anticorrupção. A manifestação reuniu mais de 50 pessoas e ocorreu em frente ao prédio
da Justiça Federal.
O juiz federal Nicolau
Konkel Junior classificou o projeto como "pró-corrupção". O
procurador do Ministério Público Federal (MPF) e coordenador da força-tarefa da
Lava Jato, Deltan Dallagnol, também participou do ato, mas não se pronunciou.
Em São Paulo, promotores e
juízes protestaram em frente à entrada do Fórum da Barra Funda, na Zona Oeste,
contra as novas regras para o
abuso de autoridade – uma
das emendas da lei anti-corrupção. A mudança foi sugerida pela bancada do PDT e
lista situações em que juízes e promotores poderão ser processados.
Em Recife, promotores de
Justiça e servidores do Ministério Público protestaram em frente à sede da
Procuradoria Geral de Justiça, no bairro de Santo Antônio. A mobilização teve
início por volta das 14h30 e durou cerca de 20 minutos. O procurador-geral de
Justiça do estado, Carlos Guerra, leu uma nota de repúdio. Segundo a assessoria
do MPPE, o ato contou com a participação de 150 pessoas. Já a Polícia Militar
de Pernambuco informou que não divulga estimativa de participantes de protestos.
Juízes e promotores
protestam contra projeto do abuso de autoridade em São Paulo (Foto: Will
Soares/G1)
No Rio Grande do Sul,
juízes e servidores do MP se reuniram em frente ao
Tribunal de Justiça. O ato
foi batizado como "Um Minuto de Silêncio pela Democracia". A
Associação de Juízes Federais do estado também emitiu nota de repúdio ao
projeto, no que diz respeito à criminalização da atuação de magistrados e
integrantes do MP.
Em João Pessoa, magistrados e promotores fizeram
um protesto em frente ao Fórum Cível.
De acordo com a Associação Paraibana do Ministério Público (APMP), a
manifestação também aconteceu nos municípios de Patos, Sousa, Guarabira e
Campina Grande.
"Nós queremos chamar a
população para esta luta e mostrar que o Ministério Público e o Judiciário não
estão preocupados consigo mesmo, mas com a sociedade, para vedarmos juntos este
retrocesso do estado Brasileiro e da nossa democracia", disse o promotor
de Justiça e diretor jurídico da associação, Leonardo Quintans.
Em Bauru e Marília, juízes,
procuradores e promotores leram cartas de repúdio
de entidades locais. Para
os magistrados, a criminalização das ações do Judiciário pode prejudicar
trabalhos futuros. Uma carta de oposição às mudanças também foi lida por juristas da região de
Sorocaba, na tarde desta quinta.
Votação na Câmara
Depois de mais de sete horas de sessão, os deputados desfiguraram o pacote que
reúne um conjunto de medidas de combate à corrupção propostas pelo Ministério
Público Federal e avalizadas por mais de 2 milhões de assinaturas de cidadãos
encaminhadas ao Congresso Nacional.
O texto foi aprovado pela
Câmara na madrugada desta quarta-feira (30). Com a aprovação, o projeto segue
agora para análise do Senado.
Ao longo da madrugada, os
deputados aprovaram diversas modificações no texto que saiu da comissão
especial. Diversas propostas foram rejeitadas e outros temas polêmicos foram
incluídos. Das dez medidas originais, somente quatro passaram, ainda assim
parcialmente.
O texto original do pacote
anticorrupção tinha dez medidas e foi apresentado pelo Ministério Público
Federal . Na comissão especial da Câmara que analisou o tema, uma parte das
sugestões dos procuradores da República foi desmembrada e outras, incorporadas
ao parecer do relator Onyx Lorenzoni (DEM-RS). As discussões foram acompanhadas
pelo Ministério Público, que deu o seu aval ao texto construído.
Segundo o relator, do texto
original, só permaneceram as medidas de transparência a serem adotadas por
tribunais, a criminalização do caixa 2, o agravamento de penas para corrupção e
a limitação do uso de recursos com o fim de atrasar processos.
The Carwash Operation (Operação Lava Jato) began as a local money
laundering investigation and has grown into the largest investigation in
Brazil. The state prosecutors from the Carwash Task Force have been on the
front line of investigations in Brazil since April 2014. Dealing with one of
the world’s biggest corruption scandals, the Petrobras case, they have
investigated, prosecuted, and obtained heavy sentences against some of the most
powerful members of Brazil’s economic and political elites.
The Operation Carwash Task Force won Transparency International's
Anti-Corruption Award in 2016.
Poderiam também fazer
vídeos em Português, principalmente quando se trata de um assunto tão
importante quanto esse! Falo em relação aos dados apresentados!
Em portugues para que
não reste dúvidas para os desavisados brasileros: " E tem gente que vai
perder seu domingo para ir às ruas protestar contra a Lei de Responsabilidade
para os membros do Judiciário e do Ministério Público. O corporativismo hermético
que emoldura o Judiciário brasileiro, mais escancarado no Brasil Pós Golpe,
transforma esse segmento em super brasileiros acima das Leis e da
Constituição., inclusive percebendo salários estratosféricos, acima do limite
constitucional. Hoje você apoia essa medida ilegal, amanhã pode ser vítima
dessa casta privilegiada, a famosa turma da "carteirada" ou do
"sabe com quem está falando?""
"Brasil Pós
Golpe". Bom, isso mostra seu caráter e que tudo que você fala sobre
"Não sou PT" ou "Não sou mortadela" é apenas o famoso
"Tenho vergonha de admitir que votei em uma quadrilha igual o PMDB e PSDB,
que é o PT". Mas entendo, Robert, o orgulho seu impede de ver a realidade,
ainda mais quando a critica não é contra a Lei de Responsabilidade mas sim a
forma que colocaram, aonde deixaram interpretação aberta para eles conseguirem
enquadrar quem quiser, mas o abuso de autoridade por político não te incomoda,
né? Ainda mais quando quem mais vota contra a Lava Jato são os
"santos" do PT e os "golpistas" do PMDB, ei, pera lá, como
assim PT, PSDB e PMDB unidos, não era golpe? Ixi, algo errado nesse seu
raciocínio. Em resumo Robert, não sei se você é coxinha ou mortadela, o que sei
que você está apenas espalhando o discurso mentiroso que ambas as partes ja
usaram em algum momento, em resumo, você é apenas mais um na massa de manobra.
As companhias
americanas de infra-estrutura e as irmãs do Petróleo estão de acordo c o
Prêmio. Será que os 20 milhões de despregados e crescentes estão?
Mas existe lei aqui
no pais, e ela pune grampo ilegal anulando a investigação e ate gerando prisão
pra juiz, acontece que como em casos de corrupção ela não é aplicada. E sinto
muito informar ao esquerdalhinha, Lula não foi "grampeado"
ilegalmente como a corja defeca pela boca em todos lugares.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CARWASH TASK FORCE FOR
THEIR BRAVERY AND PERSEVERANCE TO FACE THE DARK POWER OF CORRUPTION OF THE
CONGRESS IN BRAZIL. RENAN CALHEIROS OUT. LULA AND THE WHOLE GANG OF PT IN JAIL.
Bom lembrar que as
companhias de Petróleo e Infra-estrutura americana trabalham em conjunto com a
Cia promovendo assassinatos e guerras p obter contratos
Não sou contra a lava
jato , mas concordo que as leis é para todos independente das funções. que
exerce. Talvez muito que estão aqui, questionando essa PL, nunca viu ou
assistiu um abuso de poder . Recentemente um juiz foi multado por uma guarda
municipal , alem de ser autoritário ganhou um processo com valor acima de 10mil
reais da guarda alegando que houve desacato a autoridade , ao dizer que ele não
era dono do mundo. Mesmo ele estando errado. Outros casos como pessoas que
passaram anos na cadeia e depois descobrem que a mesma foi condenada
erradamente . Nesse casa o povo paga duas vezes , um como preso e outra para
indenizar a vitima do erro do MP e juízes. Sem falar naquela palavrinha que
eles não gostam (corporativismo). Quanto a lava jato admiro o Sergio Mora mas
ele cometeu algumas arbitrariedade apoiado pelo STF, que ao perceber o excesso
puxou-lhe as rédeas.
Brazil’s
Carwash Task Force wins Transparency International Anti-Corruption Award
Transparency
International today proudly announces that the Carwash Task Force (Força-Tarefa
Lava Jato) of Brazil has been selected as the winner of the 2016
Anti-Corruption Award.
The Carwash Operation (Operação Lava Jato) began as a local money
laundering investigation and has grown into the largest investigation to date
uncovering cases of state capture and corruption in Brazil.
The state
prosecutors from
the Carwash Task Force have been on the front line of investigations in Brazil
since April 2014. Dealing with one of the world’s biggest corruption scandals,
the Petrobras case, they have investigated, prosecuted, and obtained heavy
sentences against some of the most powerful members of Brazil’s economic and
political elites. To date, there have been more than 240 criminal charges and
118 convictions totalling 1,256 years of jail time, including high-level
politicians and businesspeople previously considered untouchable.
With
their national campaign “10 Measures against
Corruption”, they
pushed for legislative reforms to enhance the capacity of public administrators
to prevent and detect corruption, and law enforcers to investigate, prosecute
and sanction it.
On 30
November, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies voted for a weakened version of the law.
The lawmakers took out essential features on whistleblower protection and illegal
campaign financing and introduced an amendment that opens the door to prosecute
judges and prosecutors for liability offence. In extreme cases, carrying out
their normal functions could be interpreted as being unlawful according to
subjective criteria. The new version risks the independence of judges and
prosecutors.
The
Senate has yet to vote on the legislation and already protests have started to
reverse the changes made to the original 10 Measures against Corruption.
“Billions
of dollars have been lost to corruption in Brazil, and Brazilians have had
enough of the corruption that is ravaging their country. The Carwash Task Force
is doing great work in ensuring the corrupt, no matter how powerful they are,
are held to account and that justice is served,” said Mercedes de Freitas,
Chair of Transparency’s International Anti-Corruption Award Committee. “We are
pleased to award the Brazilian prosecutors behind the Carwash Task Force with
the 2016 Anti-Corruption Award for their relentless efforts to end endemic
corruption in Brazil.”
The Anti-Corruption Award honours remarkable individuals and
organisations worldwide, journalists, prosecutors, government officials, and
civil society leaders who expose and fight corruption.
The
ongoing Carwash Operation has triggered additional criminal investigations and
proceedings in other sectors and is recognised as a landmark for white-collar
criminal prosecution and defence in Brazil. The investigations have gained
traction and huge popular support on both national and international levels.
The
prosecutors from the Carwash Task Force are the second Brazilian awardees since
the launch of Transparency International’s awards in 2000 after the whistleblower
Luis Roberto Mesquita who received an Integrity Award in 2002.
Transparency
International received 580 nominations for 136 individuals for the 2016 Anti-Corruption
Award, reinforcing our belief that there is a need to celebrate the many heroes
of the fight against corruption. Nominations for this year’s award were
submitted by the public and Transparency International chapters around the
world. The jury for the award is a committee of 8 individuals from across the world who have
been active in the anti-corruption movement for many years. Past winners include corruption fighting journalists,
activists and government officials.
