If you have followed along with what is happening in Brazil, you might start reflecting on what is going on in New Hampshire and see how fascism starts. It’s not a left versus right problem, even if it ends up resulting in far-right totalitarianism. It’s a problem that spawns from a need to control the narrative to cover up gross corruption—kleptocracies.
Kleptocracy — “a society or system ruled by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources.”
Alexandre de Moraes is the president of the Superior Electoral Court and a justice of the Supreme Federal Court in Brazil. He’s been labeled a “dictator” by some. Even though he is not the president of Brazil, he has been accused of having the president on a leash by Elon Musk.
De Moraes is criminally investigating Elon Musk and “X.” Employees of X have been told they will be arrested. Starlink has been disabled, cutting off internet access for remote communities.
It all sounds extreme and a far cry from the forests, mountains, lakes, and politics of New Hampshire. But it is not. When you look at “global” it would be foolish not to consider “local”.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/world-on-cusp-of-woke-totalitarianism-as-governments-act-to-end-free-speech
To understand what is going on today, we have to look at history.
We want to thank Claire Best for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
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Alexandre de Moraes is an extreme far-right judge, and Lula Da Silva, Brazil’s president, is left-wing. They are bound together by “Operation Car Wash” — a massive money laundering scandal at the center of the Panama Papers trial, which commenced yesterday.
“The case centers on allegations the firm set up shell companies to acquire properties in Panama with money from a sprawling corruption scheme in Brazil known as the Car Wash, or Lava Jato in Portuguese.”
Lula Da Silva went to prison for “Operation Car Wash,” but Supreme Federal Court Judge Edson Fachin overturned his convictions because, he argued, the case had been tried in the wrong state in Brazil.
Lula Da Silva was thus able to run for president and win the election in 2022. Alexandre de Moraes was a “vice” or deputy judge under Edson Fachin but he was also accused of being paid $4 million for work relating to Operation Car Wash.
Left wing Lula needs right wing De Moraes and De Moraes, who needs his own corruption covered up in the same graft scandal, is a disciple of Edson Fachin. A Faustian bargain.
When you read about this interdependence in order to cover up political corruption in Brazil, you would be forgiven if you were reminded of the club at the top of NH Politics and Courts: The one that a Washington Post article referred to in 1999 following the divorce of Chuck Douglas (a former member of Congress and former New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice) from his 4th wife, also an attorney:
“The judges, who are all Chuck’s friends, rule against my clients just because I represent them.”
Other lawyers in Concord say Caroline Douglas’s argument is not without merit. But they say the situation is nowhere near as simple as she implies. There has been widespread dissatisfaction for some time in New Hampshire, they say, with the state’s clubby, closed-door method of handling complaints against judges and other lawyers. Her scattershot charges of a self-protective judicial old-boy network, they say, have clearly touched a nerve and accelerated moves toward reform.”
The timing of Alexandre de Moraes’ pursuit of Elon Musk is interesting, given that the trials for the Pandora Papers started this week. One wonders if the real reason he wants to go after X is to protect Brazil’s elections from foreign interference (as he professes) or is it that he and Lula don’t want critics of corruption to be speaking up on X or for details from the Pandora Papers trial to leak out — details that would most likely implicate him and Lula and their activities in “Car Wash”?
Meanwhile, on the home front, this week sees the start of the first civil case against the State of New Hampshire for abuse at the Youth Detention Center. More than 1000 cases are to follow. The State had originally dismissed claims of abuse as “victim negligence.” Now, the public is funding over $100 million (of which attorneys will get between 30–40%) for settlements to claimants against the State. The abuse didn’t start recently. It’s been going on and ignored for decades.
The criminal cases have been pushed back to later in the year. There have been multiple reports on the conflicts of interest for the State Attorney General’s Office, judges, and attorneys involved. Elected Republicans and Democrats all have their hand in the ugly mess from Governors (now Senators) to Attorneys General appointed by Governors, to members of the State’s Executive Committee, City Mayors, Police and DOC Officials, to the Department of Children Youth and Families and “non-profit” affiliates.
To actually come clean on what happened could (and should) send dozens of officials and others to prison, but there’s a kleptocracy to protect, federal grants to keep, and an enterprise to sustain. Control of the narrative, as it is with Alexandre De Moraes, is key. Brazil was on the brink of financial collapse when “Car Wash” was going on.
It could be argued that New Hampshire would be on the brink of financial collapse if the full and ugly truth were to come out regarding abuse of public funds to abuse, use, and harm children.
Nobody has asked for a Grand Jury Criminal Investigation into the New Hampshire Youth Detention Center. These trials will be a dance to appease the masses, split the baby, and protect the corruption. Judges aren’t going to rat on each other. Attorneys won’t rat on former judges or attorneys general because they all circulate in the same murky incestuous pool, feeding from the same teet now as they did in 1999 when the Washington Post touched on it. Public Officials won’t call each other out because none of them want to go to prison for cover-ups of abuse, which involved collusion across state agencies. I would not be remotely surprised if there was a secret code between each Governor and the next, each Attorney General and the next, to not expose the past.
Like Brazil, New Hampshire’s news media is censored. Elected officials in New Hampshire are intermediaries between the media, police, prosecutors, attorneys, and the courts. It’s all about control, just as it is in Brazil.
Manchester Police hired a reporter from WMUR to be their spokesperson. Concord Police and Merrimack County Superior Court work with elected officials and the NHCADSV to create and control their message. They have the ability to restrict media access to the courts so that only their trusted friends cover what’s going on. State laws don’t apply to public officials or when they do, the punishment is light.
The only DA who criticized the police’s use of media in investigations (Robin Davis) got smeared with a hostile environment suit and voted out in 2020. She had been a public defender and a Democrat, yet the Dem Caucus rep on the Concord City Council and NHCADSV preferred to have a Republican Juvenile Prosecutor in place. Chuck Douglas filed the hostile environment suit against the DA. The trick worked. She was gone from their business after just two years. Her complaints about the police were dismissed even though her concerns were probably well rooted in just cause.
We know what the police and prosecutors have said about the disappearance and death of Harmony Montgomery but since they couldn’t get their own timeline and story straight, that doesn’t mean we should trust Manchester Police’s media expert to tell the truth. Her body has not been found. Her father, Adam Montgomery, was convicted of her murder but refuses to show up to sentencing as he is denying that he is guilty. His girlfriend committed suicide, and the Manchester Police PR person said that it was not a suspicious death.
“Small’s death is not considered suspicious, according to police, although officials said the exact cause of death has not been determined.”
If you question the official narrative coming from police and courts, you are likely to be pursued, stalked, spied upon, or threatened. Is there any reason to trust the official narrative any more than the person in the court dock?
New Hampshire is really no different in many ways than Brazil:
Brazil’s leaders are implicated in the Panama Papers to the tune of $5.3 billion, while New Hampshire is the home to $932.5 billion in Pandora Papers secret accounts
The Pandora Papers followed the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. We wouldn’t have known about any of them if it wasn’t for the dogged pursuit of independent journalists who have managed to avoid censorship.
Autofair, which was based in Manchester, New Hampshire, and Bedford, is listed in the Paradise Papers.
Andrew H Crews was CEO of Autofair. He stepped down and the business was sold around the time that the US Senate Ways & Means Committee started asking Governors about the Pandora Papers.
Crews is on the board of Children’s Advocacy Centers, on the board of Primary Bank, on the board of Granite One Health, and President of the New Hampshire Lottery. Former US Attorney Bill Shaheen’s law firm handles lottery winners — Shaheen & Gordon argued to keep the identities of lottery winners private.
The law firm also represented Ghislaine Maxwell when she was arrested after being tracked down to a house she bought in cash through a shell company in New Hampshire. The house was registered by the Registrar of Deeds (an elected official) whose office appears to be adjacent to that of the Sheriff of Merrimack County whose son was arrested for domestic violence and tampering with evidence.
The previous sheriff was arrested for a DWI, and the Attorney General didn’t think he should be on a list of corrupt police officers.
The same AG (Gordon MacDonald) is now Supreme Court Chief Justice and argued to keep the list of corrupt police officers private.
Whenever judicial decisions take place behind closed doors in New Hampshire, you can guarantee that it is done in order to protect corruption from being exposed. Whether it is Rep. Troy Merner’s plea deal, Police Officer James F McLaughlin’s suit against the City of Keene Police, decisions by AG to delete police files or rulings by judges to keep publicly paid-for reports private.
Judges, police, and public officials are all getting secret deals that no ordinary citizen could ever hope for:
As with Alexandre de Moraes, Edson Fachin, Lula da Silva, and their cronies who range across the political spectrum, what’s really being protected when it comes to censorship in Brazil and New Hampshire is a wall against the public’s right to know and the public’s right to criticize its government.
According to Wikipedia:
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and/or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
