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Bolsonaro says: “If I remain ineligible, I no longer believe in democracy”.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro insisted on Friday that he would be the candidate of the right in the 2026 election. The former chief executive also said that he will no longer believe in democracy if he remains ineligible by decision of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

“What would democracy be? Respecting due process, the Constitution, the laws. Why make me ineligible? Two eight-year sentences (...) If I remain ineligible, I no longer believe in democracy. Democracy is over,” Bolsonaro said in an interview.

Why? WHY? Bolsonaro literally tried to kill people and created documents detailing how he would kill them. His own vice-president had an entire plan to send him into exile in the US, literally nobody likes Bolsonaro.

Indicted by the Federal Police (PF) in November for the crimes of attempted coup d'état, attempted abolition of the democratic rule of law and criminal organization, the former president could be ineligible until 2061 if he is prosecuted and sentenced with the maximum penalty, in 2025, for the alleged crimes. Bolsonaro would be 106 years old when he could stand for political office again.

lol

I talked to my nephew if they taught them about the Dot Com or Housing bubbles of 2001 and 2008.

He said no. Like the Empire is just sweeping major recent history oopsies under the carpet.

mBridge, a Bank of International Settlements Project Hyped by BRICS Fans as a Way to Evade Sanctions, Shut Down by Naked Capitalism

A case study in how much the world has changed, and how promoting narratives (boy do I hate that word) trumps getting things right is mBrigde, a BIS project that just got canned.

A bit of a “told you so” tone from Yves Smith but an excellent dissection on the practical challenges faced by BRICS (if they truly want to challenge US dominance) and how overenthusiastic multipolar fans hyped up projects without understanding the fundamentals of the issue at hand.

Importantly, we have Michael Hudson in the comment section saying this:

Yves highlights the big problem with well-wishers hoping that BRICS can create a better financial and economic system than the West has.

The idea is that financial independence requires one’s own “money.” But money itself is a legal creation that requires agreement by the governments issuing it as to (1) what countries — and who in them — gets the money that is being created, and (2) what will the money be created for.

This requires political unification and that a collective BRICS government is far from being created in the foreseeable future.

What CAN be created is a settlement system for intergovernmental debts among countries running surpluses and deficits. Keynes described such a system in his proposals for a banker back in 1944. If creditor countries did not pursue policies that enabled debtor countries to pay — by accepting their exports, for instance — then when the balances reached some critical mass, the creditor claims and debtor liabilities would be wiped off the books, because creditors had not taken responsibility for enabling debtors to pay. Such debts were bad loans, Keynes argued.

The US opposed this, wanting Hard Money, because the US had 75% of the world’s gold (and increased its share to 80% by 1950).

And today’s US would not take responsibility for loans to countries that can’t afford to pay their dollar debts without stifling their economic growth by accepting IMF austerity plans.

None of this kind of reform requires a common currency. The problem is the IMBALANCES among countries. That is the key.

As Hudson pointed out, the main problem has always been how are you going to sort out balance of payments issue. Keynes had the right idea with bancor, but with China running $1 trillion trade surplus these days, there is virtually zero incentive for China to get onboard with such a trade arrangement because bancor will only heavily punish the two countries (US and China) for running their huge trade deficits (huge import) and surpluses (huge export) - the two countries that have benefited tremendously from the status quo at the expense of the rest of the world.

This again goes back to why I always said that China’s only way out is to transition into a domestic consumption economy and give up their export industries, because the very act of transitioning itself has a very nice built-in incentive for China to embrace the bancor-like mechanism that will return the world to a more balanced trade, and also contains the antidote against dollar hegemony at the same time. That means industrial capacities more equally distributed across the world, as well as simultaneously blunting the force of US monetary imperialism.

There's gonna be a lot of CEOs and other really awful people all in one place on monday... Just making an observation

Xi: Readiness to secure greater progress in China-U.S. relations from a new starting point

TL;DR: Congratulations, better relations, Ukraine, Palestine.

Today’s news from the Donbass.

Russian forces liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic settlement of Vremyevka, just west of Velikaya Novosyolka. Kiev regime occupation forces inside Velikaya Novosyolka are now mostly encircled (map included): https://news-pravda.com/world/2025/01/17/983791.html

The details continue emerging of how Kiev regime troops (including Western mercenaries) massacred civilians in the DPR’s Selidovo before fleeing in late October: https://southfront.press/black-tuesday-how-the-afu-strewn-the-town-with-corpses/

A surrendered Ukrainian soldier stated that the Kiev regime is burning its dead troops’ bodies to avoid paying their families. They also burn Western mercenaries’ bodies to hide their presence: https://sputnikglobe.com/20250117/ukrainian-forces-burn-soldiers-bodies-to-avoid-paying-families---pow-1121442354.html

A combat summary for today (plus videos): https://southfront.press/overview-of-military-situation-in-ukraine-january-17-2025/

NEW: We reconstructed @samhusseini's viral confrontation with Antony Blinken by combining footage from multiple sources, including @amrhsayed & @ryangrim. A must-see.

This was the culmination of months of State Dept stonewalling.

“Why aren't you in The Hague??”

video at https://xcancel.com/decensorednews/status/1880230957070029141

Had a beautiful fantasy today imagining right after Trump takes office, a massive mobilization of people coming together to march on wherever Biden is with the campaign of a Citizen’s Arrest of Biden. And/or Blinken, Miller, etc. Like a Jan 6th of trying to physically get Biden and try him in a People’s Court. This would never work out obviously lol but because Trump is Trump I don’t think he would put up too much of a fight against it with federal forces. Maybe it’d just be secret service aiming guns at protestors. But just thinking about a million people coming together to march on that one aim…beautiful

Inauguration moved inside because Hellword has frozen over

Apparently the surprise musical guest at the inauguration is going to be Nelly?

Under Brazil's presidency, BRICS announces the entry of Cuba, Bolivia and six other countries as partners. The countries join the bloc as partners, with a lower status than full members, but with the possibility of participating in summits and thematic meetings. According to Friday's announcement, the following countries have joined the BRICS as partners:

• Belarus

• Bolivia

• Kazakhstan

• Cuba

• Malaysia

• Thailand

• Uganda

• Uzbekistan

seems fairly brazen from iran (if true/not old stuff), i would assume they would have suspended this part of the operations. kinda darkly funny how open hts is about its preferences

Fire at the world’s largest battery plant in California forces evacuations

SC has upheld the ban on Tiktok lmao

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/17/supreme-court-rules-to-uphold-tiktok-ban.html

Now its up to the executive to enforce it. Biden has decided to leave it up to trump, and trump has signaled he won't enforce it either

Trump, China's Xi hold call on TikTok, trade, Taiwan

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump takes office again promising tariffs that could ratchet up tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

Both leaders were upbeat about the call, with Trump calling it "a very good one" and Xi saying he and Trump both hoped for a positive start to U.S.-China relations, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

It was the first known phone call between the pair after Trump's election in November.

The U.S. and China are embroiled in an array of diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry and bitter trade disputes. Marco Rubio, Trump's nominee to be his secretary of state, has defined China as the gravest threat facing the U.S. and warned about the risks of possible military conflict between the two countries.

The call came shortly before U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced a ruling upholding a law that mandates TikTok owner ByteDance divest TikTok's U.S. assets by Sunday to a non-Chinese buyer, or be banned on national security concerns.

"The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately. We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects," Trump wrote on his social media platform.

"President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!"

Xi raised China's concerns about Taiwan, which Beijing maintains is part of its territory, and said he hoped the U.S. would treat the matter with great care.

"The Taiwan issue concerns China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and he hopes the U.S. side will handle it with caution," he said according to Chinese state television.

Xi said the United States and China can have their differences but must respect each other's core interests, and that trade relations can be mutually beneficial without confrontation and conflict, comments similar to those he made during Trump's first term.

The Chinese readout of the call said the two leaders agreed to set up a "channel of strategic communication to keep in regular touch on major issues of shared interest."

Trump offered strong support to Taiwan, including regularizing arms sales, in his first term. But during the campaign last year, he said Taiwan should pay the U.S. to be defended.

The Republican president-elect, who upended trade relations in his first term, is about to embark on an even more aggressive effort in his second term. He has pledged to impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl, and he threatened tariffs in excess of 60% on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.

Trump said on Jan. 6 that he and Xi have been communicating through representatives, expressing optimism about their relationship.

Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said whether Trump in coming days would permit TikTok to operate without a qualified divestment and whether he applied tariffs on China quickly or first began negotiations with Beijing would be early indicators of how confrontational his stance toward China would be.

Trump posted online later that his decision on TikTok would be coming soon, and that "everyone must respect" the Supreme Court ruling.

Breaking with tradition, Trump had invited Xi and other foreign leaders to his Jan. 20 inauguration, but China is sending Vice President Han Zheng, a move signaling Beijing's desire to step up communication with the incoming administration.

Still, any "grand bargain" between the two sides over trade, Taiwan and other strategic issues would be difficult to reach, said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

"There's an immense amount of distance between what one can imagine and actually achieving such an outcome. The interests between the U.S. and China on many of these issues are different and the views of key advisors to both are quite hawkish," Kennedy said.

Folks, we’re gonna do so many great things, folks. lmao this guy.

But as I’ve said, there is a good chance of easing US-China tension with Biden gone.

Marco Rubio To Unsuccessfully Seek a New Interventionist Adventure in Venezuela - Telesur English