Good evening! We are back! Here I am, after a short break, a little fatter, a little balder.
. . And today we will talk about monarchy.
Of course, it's all people talk about in Brazil. Not really, but I wanted to talk about it. I don't know if you've noticed, but Brazil loves a king.
Yes, Roberto Carlos is the king, but Pelé was also the king, and Xuxa is the queen of little ones. Yes, it's good to remember that: Xuxa is our queen. If you are over 5 feet 7, you are not her subject, man.
You have no right to speak. In Brazilian cuisine, monarchy reigns. There's the King of Cod, the King of Shrimp, the King of Picanha, of Moqueca, of Stroganoff.
. . There is no food in Brazil that doesn't have its own king.
"No, Gregorio, you're exaggerating. There's no King of Frango Atropelado. " Well, there is.
It's in Vila da Saúde, São Paulo. The name would be too long, so they call it "King of the Atropelado". Yes, that's a thing.
King of Fried Chicken? There is one in São Vicente, also in São Paulo. Some foods even have an entire royal family, like the empada: there's the King, the Queen, the Prince, and the Princess.
Brazil is a big Versailles of the empada. The curious thing is that while we love fake kings, we have no idea who our real royal family is. And there's a reason for that: Brazil doesn't have a real royal family.
Brazil doesn't have a prince, unlike the empada, which does, and it's located in Rio Pomba, Minas Gerais. I mean, we do have a supposed prince. But before you get excited about the idea of a Brazilian prince, well, he's 82, a supporter of Bolsonaro, and a virgin.
I mean, we assume he's a virgin because he's ultra-Catholic and never got married, so if he had sex, it would be a sin. And why didn't he get married? Interesting question.
Because he couldn't find a princess willing to marry him, and according to the rules of our monarchy, if he married any woman who wasn't an European princess, he would lose the right to the throne. What throne? The throne he will never have because it doesn't exist.
Yes, he is the Brazilian Inri Cristo. Well, actually, the foreign Inri Cristo. Because Inri Cristo is Brazilian.
As for Bertrand, our "prince," he was born in France and has a curious accent and curious pro-monarchy arguments: The Republic has no future. Brazil has resisted these years of the Republic. Nobody prays the Lord's Prayer saying, "Thy Republic come," they pray: "Thy Kingdom come.
" I don't know if he has a speech impediment or a French accent. But it doesn't make sense to have a French accent, he was born there but has been living here for over 70 years. Although Claude Troisgros never lost his accent.
But in Claude's case, I think it's marketing. He acts like, "Oh, how marvelous! " When they say, "Cut!
" he says, "Damn, thank God, bro! I couldn't stand speaking like this anymore, for fuck's sake! 30 years pretending to talk like this!
" But anyway, back to Bertrand: every time I hear a prince speaking, it reminds me of the reason why I can't date my cousin. But his argument is really perfect. He's right, when people pray, they do say, "Thy Kingdom come!
" and not, "Thy Republic come. " I hadn't thought about that! We go to King of Mate, there is no Senator of Mate.
You watch "The Lion King," but you wouldn't watch "The Prime Minister Lion. " Would you watch the soap opera Cattle Councilman? Or What Federal Deputy am I?
No, no way! The King of the VIP Area has blinking drinks, the congressman in the VIP area. .
. too. And there's a reason why Brazil is not a monarchy.
One reason could be that the king would be D. Bertrand? Maybe.
But not just that. The reason we are not a monarchy is. .
. because we chose not to be. I mean, you might not have chosen.
But the country chose, in a referendum, exactly 30 years ago, in 1993. Yes, when Brazil came out of the military dictatorship, the government asked the people this question, like an insecure boyfriend: "So, what do you want with me? Is it love or just fooling around?
Do you want an orgy or just cuddling? Do you want monogamy, or do you want to invite this old and virgin prince for a threesome? " Yes, that question was asked through a referendum.
Where did this idea come from? Well, it all started in 1933, as Bertrand would say. And what happened that year?
A constituent assembly, proposed by Getúlio Vargas. At the time, our Presidential Republic was maintained as the system of government. But a few years later, Vargas made a parliamentary constitution to keep the power to dissolve the Chamber and the exclusivity to initiate constitutional amendment projects.
It was the beginning of a typically Brazilian kludge, better known as semi-presidentialism, where the regime is presidential, but the constitution has traces of parliamentarism. It sounds like a label warning: "this constitution may contain traces of parliamentarism. " But Vargas used the kludge to give more power to himself, the executive, not to the Congress.
30 years after Vargas' constitution, in 1963, the majority of Brazilians voted in a referendum to maintain the presidentialism. Because 2 years before, the military had imposed a prime minister without consulting the population. It was an agreement to let the vice-president João Goulart, who advocated for very absurd and frightening things like agrarian reform, take the position that was rightfully his, but that was vacant due to Jânio Quadros' unexpected resignation.
So, to avoid a civil war, Jango agreed to share power, and for a while, we had the figure of a prime minister, and one of them was named Brochado da Rocha, which is a contradiction in terms, Brochado da Rocha doesn't make any sense. He must have grown tired of the jokes and changed his name to Impotent da Rocha. But the fact is that the popular referendum confirmed, once again, that the country wanted a presidential system.
However, the military didn't like the result. So they didn't give a fuck about it, or the fact that Jango had 70% approval, and staged a coup d'état. From then on, the dictatorship's presidents were elected by the parliament through indirect elections, with rules entirely manipulated by the military regime.
It was a military-dictatorial semi-parliamentarism, a Brazilian platypus like a sushi pizza, which manages to insult the cuisine of two countries at the same time. Our cuisine gives the Brazilian diplomacy a lot of trouble. During the redemocratization, the Constituent Assembly gathered in 1987 and once again chose the presidential system as the form of government.
The constituent assembly was led by Ulysses Guimarães, a parliamentarian, with the support of other leaders like then deputies Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula, who also advocated for parliamentary system. Of course, later on, they changed their minds and became presidentialists, so much so that they became presidents. Perhaps that's why they became presidentialists.
. . Ulysses' parliamentary system was defeated by the Constituent Assembly with decisive support from the "Centrão".
That's where the "Centrão" was born, and it supported presidentialism. Why? To defend the interests of the then-president José Sarney.
But Ulysses' group managed to negotiate a second chance and scheduled a referendum for 1993, where the people would decide on their form and system of government. The forms of government were monarchy or republic, and the systems were parliamentary or presidential. The 1993 referendum stirred the political and cultural world.
The newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa interviewed several personalities who were enjoying the carnival that year at the Sapucaí to find out their positions. Among the interviewees was Eri Johnson, and the article said this: "'I am a parliamentarian and believe in the victory of parliamentary system,' said the gothic, claiming to be more famous than actor Robert De Niro, also present in the Brahma's VIP area. " Brahma's VIP area was kind of a Gkay's Farofa of the 90s.
And yes, if the guests of Brahma's VIP area voted for the most famous one, Eri Johnson might have beaten De Niro, and that's precisely the problem with an indirect election. But I don't know if you noticed that the article called him gothic. Why?
Is Eri Johnson gothic? In 1993, he was portraying a gothic character in the soap opera 'Corpo e Alma. ' I mean, he was portraying what Glória Perez understood as gothic.
-Hi, mom! -Reginaldo! Is that you, Reginaldo?
Of course, it's me, mother! Now I'm a gothic. -What?
-Gothic. Isn't Gothic a cathedral? No, mother.
Gothic is a movement they have in São Paulo. -You look like from another world. -But we are!
We don't accept the values or conventions that you do. Well, take off that outfit! Right now!
Alright, mother. Alright. Go ahead, hit me.
Hit all you want, I don't mind. I'm a pacifist. -Gothic?
I'll teach you a lesson! -Wait, mom! Yes, we learned that Gothic is a pacifist movement in São Paulo that doesn't care about conventions and gets beat up by their mother.
Glória Perez is a person who creates soap operas to explain phenomena she doesn't understand. She treats the Gothic just as she treated the gypsy, the Arab, the Indian, the illegal immigrant, and the cosplayer. She managed to offend even the cosplayers, who felt disrespected by the character Yuri, who always dressed up as Goku.
People dressed up as Goku didn't like seeing someone dressed up as someone who dresses up as Goku. They felt what Goku feels every day when he sees their faces. But going back to the 1993 referendum, who was at the pinnacle?
Drgon Ball. But that's not the point. The point is that several groups started airing political campaign commercials to defend their government projects.
Yes, television had commercials in favor of the monarchy, like this one: So come, Brazilian, get real For our Brazil To get out of this mess In the light of an idea To change the country Justice and peace within the law Vote for the king! This is the worst jingle I've ever seen in my life. Vote for the king?
You can't vote for a king! And they never show the king's face. Or his name.
I think it's to attract some fans of Roberto Carlos. Or maybe customers of the King of Corn. In reality, the monarchy was there for comic relief.
The monarchy was the Eymael of that time. The real dispute was between parliamentary and presidential systems. The campaign of PDT of Brizola, who was in favor of a presidential republic, even used this video against the parliamentary front: The Congress that supported the coup and ended direct elections was the same one that, after Jânio Quadros' resignation in '61, secretly approved the parliamentary regime to prevent President João Goulart from implementing the basic reforms.
Proof that the parliamentary system in Brazil has always been the antechamber of the coup. It is this same conservative and reactionary majority that historically dominates the Congress and wants to put Brazil into the parliamentary adventure again. It's great to be able to use a video where someone else calls Ciro a reactionary.
And in this case, it's Brizola, 30 years ago. The fact is that parliamentarism lost. And he couldn't even go to Paris, France is not a parliamentary system.
Anyway, in the end, the majority of the Brazilian population decided on a presidential republic. It's not even surprising. It was difficult to convince the people to choose a parliamentary system, where the prime minister is indirectly elected by the Congress, when this very people took to the streets 10 years earlier to demand direct elections.
The famous Direct Elections Now. The truth is that Brazil likes a president, and to vote directly for the president, as long as it's not Ciro. However, I don't know if you've noticed, but we are in 2023.
Yes, 30 years after our last discussion about the system of government. That same discussion we had in '33, then in '63, and in '93. And it came back again this year, in 2023.
Yes, our democracy is facing the thirty-year crisis, when you adopt a stray dog, open up your relationship, and cut those ridiculous sloppy bangs. And this year, the debate about parliamentary system resurfaced in the Congress and opinion columns. It never was luck, it was always the return of Saturn.
In the Senate, Damares Alves is the one advocating for Brazil to become a parliamentary system. I had never heard her talking about it when Bolsonaro was the president. In the Chamber, the debate leans towards an intermediate proposal, the semi-presidentialism, or semi-parliamentarism, it's the same thing.
In this system, the population would still elect a President to represent them, but the President would have fewer powers than today. The Prime Minister, elected by the parliament and approved by the President, would choose the Ministers of State and actually govern the government. In other words, it's every deputy's dream: we continue to pay attention only to the President as if he has all the power, but the parliament, through the Prime Minister, is the one actually governing.
The President gets the fame, the parliament gets the money. And you know who is the main supporter of this project? The President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira: There's a topic that I want to draw everyone's attention to, which is a discussion that the Chamber will propose to discuss semi-presidentialism without any kind of pressure or voting.
Today, we have a constitution that is basically parliamentary in a presidential system, and this causes clashes. There are several positive aspects that semi-presidentialism would bring. What I support openly for Brazil has always been semi-presidentialism.
There's a bill in the Congress. We have to address this issue, it is becoming more and more present. Yes, it's becoming more present because you won't stop talking about it.
As a parliamentarian, used to dealing with laws, I think he believes in the law of attraction. He's co-creating this topic, semi-presidentialism, and he thinks it's becoming more and more present around him. Lira and his allies in Congress even formed a working group in 2022 to discuss semi-presidentialism.
Don't feel ashamed of playing RPG, it could be worse. . .
This group has already presented a Constitutional Amendment proposal to institute this new government regime in the country. Lira says there's no rush, and if Brazil were to adopt semi-presidentialism, the model would only come into effect in 2030. He's clever, he knows that Brazilians would accept any crap within such a timeframe.
We don't think we'll even be alive in 2030. For example, I am a person who has no empathy for myself in 2030, so I spend the day ruining that person's life. I don't know who he is, screw him.
I eat churros, drink beer on weekdays during lunch, don't worry about my liver tomorrow, why would I care about semi-presidentialism in 2030? Screw it! But it's no coincidence that the one leading this debate today is Lira.
Why? Because he probably knows he doesn't have the charisma to be elected president by popular vote, but he has enough parliamentary support to be elected Prime Minister, even if it's in 2030. Lira, today, is already bigger than the Centrão itself.
While the Centrão parties have around 200 deputies, Lira has influence over 300. Yes, after the 300 Spartans, here come the 300 Scoundrels. The secret?
Money. In the last three years of Bolsonaro's government, the deputies and senators were able to allocate almost 54 billion reais from the budget to their electoral strongholds, without any transparency, through the so-called secret budget, while Lula's administration only has 22. 4 billion to invest this year, as the rest is committed to mandatory expenses.
And I felt so rich saying "only 22. 4 billion". But that's actually a small amount for me.
. . I mean, for a country with 200 million people.
Lira is so powerful that he clearly organizes the Congress's agenda for his own benefit. This year, he rushed through numerous votes for what purpose? To start the legislative recess earlier.
Why? To be able to go on Wesley Safadão's cruise, which departs from Florida and stops in the Bahamas. In videos, the congressman from the PP appears alongside his wife, Angela Lira, and Senator Weverton Rocha from PDT-Maranhão, on WS on Board.
To travel, Arthur Lira, as Sheila said, accelerated the votes in the Chamber and instituted the so-called recess for the house. The video, which those on YouTube are following, was previously published by the R7 portal. I feel sorry that he embarked on a cruise when there are so many submarines out there.
Don't you like Titanic? Titanic is just sitting there. .
. Are you afraid? Are you a chicken?
Only now the media is slowly finding out where the secret budget money went. Now we know that between 2020 and 2022, while each congressman had the right to allocate R$ 36 million from the public budget, Arthur Lira alone allocated around 358 million. Yes, 10 times more than other deputies.
Where did this money go? Part of it went to the city where his father, Benedito Lira, is the mayor. But there is also money that was allocated not directly by Lira, but by his allies.
Piauí magazine discovered that R$ 1 billion from the secret budget went entirely to a hospital owned by Lira's friends in Alagoas, a hospital that is drowning in debt and, despite receiving this billion, currently doesn't even have enough money to pay its employees' salaries. Lira's allies are also under investigation for overcharging on robotics kits purchased by Alagoas municipalities using money from the secret budget. And it's not only that money that ends up going to Lira's allies or relatives.
According to a recent report, Arthur Lira's son, Arthurzinho Lira, who is 23 years old, received support from his father to open an advertising company that intermediated the payment of R$ 34 million of public money to three companies, and he kept a commission of about 20% of that amount. And this is just a hobby. Because Lira's son claims he wants to become a chef.
I really wished I could make that much money with my hobby, but something tells me it won't work out, because my hobby is watercolor. If it was state advertising, brokering advertisements. .
. Perhaps. But don't be fooled: Lira doesn't show the same dedication to all of his children.
One of his daughters, who is now 20 years old, the result of an extramarital relationship, had her paternity recognized by Lira only when she was 7 years old, and even after the DNA test, he contested paternity in court. Oh, and the daughter has a severe disability, requires full-time care, but she doesn't use Lira's health insurance, she lives with her mother in a simple house, and that mother had to go to court to get a medication worth R$ 1800 through the public health system. I'm mentioning all these names, numbers, and sad facts about Lira's children and allies, and I haven't made any jokes for a reason.
We've reached the 21st minute of the show, which is when I stop making jokes. But why? Because we finish writing this text on the day we record, and we spend eight hours writing the first few pages and just half an hour writing the last ones, and there's no more time to be funny.
I keep trying to think of jokes, but the director says, "Come on, we have to record the show! Forget about the jokes! " But it's also because we start getting really angry about the topic, and we can't find anything funny anymore.
It's just hatred. This show, almost always, has an arc of getting angry. And we've reached the peak.
What I'm telling you is that today, the most powerful man in the country, a guy who decides what will be voted on, and when it will be voted on, a person who controls billions of reais of our money, a guy who changes the entire Congress's schedule to go on Safadão's cruise, this guy tried to deny paternity and not pay R$ 4,000 in child support for his disabled daughter. And this is the guy who is not satisfied with the power he already has and wants to impose a change in the political regime on the entire country, so that he becomes even more powerful, even though we have already expressed in four constituent assemblies and two referendums that what we want is a presidential system. If you want to get even angrier, look at what he recently said on Roda Viva, when questioned about one of the many scandals involving his name: I received this leak, this news of the leak, with much sadness on my birthday.
This is symptomatic, this is not human, this is not ethical. This does not respect the institution I represent and the efforts my house makes to put Brazil on the right path. Oh, poor thing!
He's so cute! He wanted the newspaper editor to say, "No, guys. Not today.
It's the boy's birthday. Let's all make a pact so Arthur can blow out his candles calmly, next to his daughter. I mean, away from his daughter.
But next to Safadão. Otherwise, it's not human, it's not ethical. " Yes, for him, the Federal Police need to respect something called the Astral Hell.
He wanted the Federal Police and all the newspapers to have in mind the birthdays of 513 deputies, 81 senators, so they would never investigate anything on anyone's birthday. It's not enough to have privileged jurisdiction, he wants a privileged cake. But things get worse because, even if Lira doesn't manage to approve semi-presidentialism, the fact is that, thanks to our parliamentary-biased constitution and the growth of parliamentary amendments, we are already living in a sort of semi-parliamentary system.
That's what Flávio Dino calls, rightly, surreptitious parliamentarism. I don't know if it's because his name is Dino, but he likes Jurassic terms. "Oh, but didn't the secret budget end at the end of the Bolsonaro government?
" Well, it didn't end. Because in an agreement with the Centrão, half of the secret budget money remained in the hands of the rapporteur. It's R$ 9.
7 billion just for him to use as he pleases. But now he can do it constitutionally. Because, after an agreement with the Lula government, Congress approved an amendment to the constitution regulating rapporteur's amendments with their own budget.
Yes, it's an amendment that created amendments, and the Constitution has become a patchwork of amendments. When we talk about amendments, it's usually a surreptitious way of talking about money. But, in popular language, as everyone knows, it also means a seam that exists between the anus and the penis.
Men usually have a sort of perineal mure, an almost invisible road from the balls to the asshole, and many call it 'amendment' as if it were a seam between the two hemispheres of the body. Yes, this amendment, just like the parliamentary amendment, stitches the left and the right towards the Centrão. But getting back to budget amendments: the other half of the money was added to the individual amendments' amount.
Yes, the amendment increased. There must be parliamentarians just like that congressman who carried money in his underwear, carrying amendments on the amendment. This year, each parliamentarian will be able to allocate almost twice the value they had available last year.
And thanks to a maneuver from Eduardo Cunha's time, since 2015, the government is obliged to pay these individual amendments. Yes, it was Cunha who secured the amendments. Before Cunha orchestrated to weaken Dilma's bargaining power, parliamentarians only suggested where to invest part of the budget money, but the execution was at the government's discretion.
If they didn't want to, they wouldn't release the amendment. Consent was needed for this stitching. The dispute between Lula and Lira, today, is not just a power struggle.
What we are witnessing, it becomes clearer every day, is a battle between two powers for the country's political system. Why is Lula increasingly under Lira's control? Because the significant funds have secured Lira an unprecedented support base in Congress, and putting an end to his amendments has become nearly impossible.
But as long as they continue, Lira only accumulates more power. Now he wants more. He wants to appoint more ministers.
He wants to weaken existing ministries. And gradually, we are getting used to having a stronger and stronger congress, and an increasingly weaker executive, with the entire investment budget of the country being executed by parliamentarians, not the president. And the president of the Chamber is becoming a more powerful prime minister than those in parliamentary systems, as he cannot be removed even if he loses popular support.
He is our king, our Dom Bertrand, only with real power. The fact is that there is little one can say about the Brazilian voter. The Brazilian electorate has changed a lot throughout history.
You can't say that the Brazilian people are left-wing or right-wing. You can't say they are conservative or progressive, liberal or statist. But one thing is certain: the Brazilian people are not parliamentary.
They have made that clear more than once. And it's no wonder that millions of people took to the streets for direct elections. Because one thing we hate in Brazil is indirectness.
However, today, the most powerful person in the country is not the president of the republic, but the president of the Chamber. And he is chosen through an indirect vote. That's why we want to launch a new campaign: a new Direct Elections Now.
We urgently need direct elections for the president of the Chamber. Yes, directism is a topic, which is becoming more and more present. It would surely win any referendum.
It's all people talk about at Greg News. Sure, I'm the one who always brings up the subject. I am a supporter of gothic directism.
Because besides being a directist, I am a pacifist and reject conventions. And I like getting my amendment spanked. This was Greg News!
Good night, folks!
