Santospeak on the rioting in Brasilia

Daily Point

Santos and the sounds of Brazil

Mob violence in Brazil’s capital on Sunday marked a striking reprise of the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago.

In Washington then, the protesters acted on false “stolen election” claims by defeated President Donald Trump; in Brasilia this weekend, the disturbances were launched in support of similar canards from defeated President Jair Bolsonaro.

New Republican Rep. George Santos is, according to the best available information, a son of Brazilian immigrants. As emerged after his election, for example, he also happens to face a stolen-check charge from 2010 in that nation’s city of Rio de Janeiro.

That’s why Santos’ reaction to the right-wing attacks on the elected government in Brasilia commands attention. On Sunday, the new congressman tweeted: “The violence in Brazil is not the way to achieve anything, I vehemently condemn the acts of violence and vandalism displayed in Brasilia today.”

But that minimalist distancing from the reactionary “movement” advocated in both countries by the likes of Trump ally and convicted ex-aide Steve Bannon doesn’t tell you on whose side Santos may sit in the crisis of democracy in his ancestral homeland.

A better signal of his political loyalties down there came on social media six days after Santos was elected.

On Nov. 14, he posted a photo of himself on Instagram grinning alongside Carla Zambelli, a fiercely pro-Bolsonaro member of the Brazilian National Congress. “USA & Brasil!!! Friends fighting for free speech and freedom! It was an honor to visit with Brazilian congresswoman @carla.zambelli,” the Republican posted.

That social media display came only two weeks after Zambelli was caught on video chasing and pointing a gun at a man in Sao Paulo later identified as a supporter of the victor in the election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. According to local news media, Zambelli claimed self-defense which witness accounts didn’t seem to support.

Santos has said he was in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and has boasted on video that he wrote a “fat check” to help free accused rioters. He also said publicly he never went to the besieged Capitol and at one point called it all a “sad and dark day.”

Speaking of fat checks, news broke Monday that Santos’ fundraising faces a likely investigation by the Federal Elections Commission in response to complaints of wide-ranging campaign finance violations.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Talking Point

Loud work

Kevin Smith, co-founder of the influential far-right group Long Island Loud Majority, has a new job.

He has nabbed an “Audio Visual Production Specialist” gig with the Smithtown Department of Public Safety, according to the minutes of a Jan. 3 Town Board meeting.

The part-time job has a pay rate of $19.91 per hour and is “not to exceed ½ the normal work week,” according to a resolution included in the minutes, which shows unanimous support from Supervisor Ed Wehrheim and members of the council.

Loud Majority has been a potent grassroots force in regional politics since 2020, getting involved in school and library board issues and often boosting Donald Trump and Trump-wing figures for New York races. The group has at times focused on Smithtown, including an October 2021 post from the “Loud Majority US” Facebook page inviting people to a “breakfast and a meet and greet with Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim.”

“Smithtown is going to be crucial in taking back our county on November 2nd,” the post continued, alluding to that year’s local races which included one for Smithtown supervisor. “[W]e need all hands on deck.”

Smith is not new to AV work, given his show on the Rumble video platform where he and fellow LILM co-founder Shawn Farash have covered political as well as hot-button or controversial topics. On Monday morning’s edition, for example, Smith alluded to a myth connecting athlete deaths to COVID-19 vaccines which has circulated in the wake of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest.

“This Damar Hamlin situation probably isn't exactly everything it’s being said it was,” Smith said.

Asked about the Smith hire, Wehrheim’s secretary said “we don’t hire through this office” and forwarded The Point to the personnel division. Staff members there said that the job, which encompasses between 17.5 and 20 hours a week, does not include health insurance or vacation accrual though there is the option to join the New York State retirement system. And it is a “part-time Civil Service title” and therefore does not need an exam.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

A hit from the start

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Final Point

Reading the tea leaves

• Conservative House Republicans, who complain about bills negotiated behind closed doors, agreed to elect Kevin McCarthy speaker after negotiating rules changes and other actions behind closed doors. Maybe they didn’t dislike the process; maybe they just wanted to be part of it.
• A new FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drug is being hailed as a breakthrough after evidence that it delays early-stage patients from getting worse for about five months. That says more about the fear of Alzheimer’s than the new drug’s actual effectiveness.
• After the Newport News, Virginia shooting of a first-grade teacher by a 6-year-old, Mayor Phillip Jones said that “there is going to be a nationwide discussion on how these sorts of things can be prevented.” Notably, he did not say there would be a nationwide solution.
• Thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s Congress and Supreme Court after Bolsonaro complained that the recent election he lost was rigged. It was like something out of a Third World country — or the United States.
• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the Biden administration did not communicate with local officials before the president’s visit to the Texas-Mexico border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Abbott’s administration is “not collaborating” with the Biden administration on immigration. You know the issue is contentious when opposing sides can’t even agree on who is not talking to whom.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie