Lula has been arrested

Lula was the president of Brasil from 2003 to the end of 2010. During those years 29 million people were assisted into the middle class through government programs and educational initiatives. He did amazing things with the Brasilian economy and helped his entire country to a better life. Barack Obama once said, "I love this guy!" and Tony Blair called Lula one of the most remarkable leaders of our age. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11458409

So Lula decided to run for the office of presidency again. Now he has been arrested. He was charged with (accused of) illegally accepting a million dollar piece of property he has never lived in and for which there is zero proof that he accepted.

Basically, Lula seems to be an innocent man who helped millions of people, and he is probably now the victim of dirty politics. Certain folks in Brasil did not want Lula to run again, and so they threw him in jail.

In the following article you can read how his own supporters tried to stop him from surrendering to the police.

An article about his arrest: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/brazils-lula-creates-standoff-defiance-prison-order-54301463


Vocabulary from the article:

tense - scary, threatening, causing one to be afraid

a showdown - when two people or groups face each other in some type of conflict, a confrontation

to be in custody - the police has taken control of him and have taken away his freedom

capping - ending

intense - strong

underscored - highlighted, revealed, strongly showed

raw emotions - emotions that people can't control, that just come out strongly

the incarceration of - throwing a person into jail

engulfed by - literally: eaten by, surrounded by, overcome by

corruption - acting in a dishonest manner, not acting properly in regard to one's position so that money is stolen or jobs are not done properly

a conviction - to be found guilty

to be holed up in - to be hiding safely in

clashes - fights

scores - a score is a dozen people (12)

a whirlwind of events - a lot of events going by quickly

a petition - a document asking for something

to appeal his conviction - he was found guilty by a lower court but he 'appealed' to a higher court (asked the higher court) to overturn or get rid of the guilty verdict (conviction). He wanted to remain free while the higher court considered the appeal. The lower court would not allow him to remain free.

Car Wash cases - many instances of corruption have been investigated in Brasil and the whole group of cases or incidents are being called 'the car wash cases'. I am not sure why.

an arrest warrant - a document giving the police the authority to arrest a person; such a warrant is usually given by a judge

a 12 year sentence - a sentence is a period of time a person must remain in prison

to hunker down - to establish oneself more firmly in a place. e.g. I need to hunker down and study for this test!  or: You are experiencing a lot of bad luck lately, but don't worry, hunker down and things will get better.

improbable - unlikely, not expected

prosecutors - lawyers for the government who try to throw people in jail

to take refuge - to go to a safe place

trajectory - his path to the top, a trajectory is the path that a rocket or some other objecttakes as it rises (and sometimes falls)

allegations - complaints

trading favors - giving something to get something

to be upheld - to be confirmed, to be found to be right

colossal - huge, gigantic

a fall from grace - to go from a great, amazing place to a lousy, bad, rotten place

against steep odds - despite huge chances against him; to do something against the odds means few people have done it before. e,g. I come from a poor and working-class family and against steep (difficult) odds I was able to go to an Ivy League school.  Odds are chances of success. If you are definitely going to win something, you have 1-1 odds. If you are probably not going to be able to do something, but there is still a chance, your odds might be 50-1 or 100-1 or if you really will have a hard time doing something 1,000 - 1 etc.

a booming economy - an economy that kept increasing

abject - hopeless

hardscrabble - something difficult, something requiring struggle to survive

to rise through the ranks - to start at the bottom of an organization and to keep getting higher and higher jobs

a union - an organization of workers 

a strike - when workers refuse to work until they receive a better salary or working conditions

to be polarized - most people are on one side or the other (we have a North Pole and a South Pole)

to be behind bars - to be in jail

detractors - people against someone or something

impunity - to do something wrong and to get away with it

to disqualify someone - to make it impossible for a person to do something because he/she is not "qualified" or does not meet the standards or criteria

to be ensnared - to be caught

a scandal - a situation in which famous or powerful people have been exposed or revealed to have been doing something wrong

the elite - the very famous, the very powerful, the few people who have become well-known

an illegal scheme - an illegal plan to make money secretly

a cartel - an illegal organization

to dole out - to hand out, to deliver

inflated - larger than normal

a kickback - I help you make money and you send some of this money to me.  e.g. You own a construction company and I have power in government. We need to hire a construction company to build a road. So, I tell you, give me an inflated figure for the construction of this road. I will make sure the government pays you this amount. You then kick some of that money back to me. 

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Feel free to contact me with comments or questions at djg51qu@gmail.com

Hungary's Two-Tailed Dog Party - Can They Save the World? I think so.

The sticker says: Look into my eyes, you will vote for us!

The Two-Tailed Dog Party of Hungary may be the greatest political party or political movement of all time. Please read the following article about them. If they gain power, they will distribute free beer and try to negotiate free trade agreements with alien civilizations (in other parts of the universe). They will take children to school in helicopters, and not in school buses. 

Yes, they are out-of-the-box thinkers. (They are also being very satirical - to be satirical means to make fun of or to laugh at an "important" or famous person or institution. Their campaign seems satirical in origin - they are laughing at evil political parties and politics in general, I believe.) 

(A political "party" is a political group that usually represents a particular belief system. The two-tailed dogs seem to be very open-minded and liberal.)

The article:

http://www.newsweek.com/hungarys-joke-party-dead-serious-about-election-875196

Vocabulary from the article:

a joke party - a political party that was created as a joke, initially, even though they are now, apparently, seriously running candidates for election. (notice: to run for election)

to be dead serious - to be really serious, to be super serious

to draw penises - a penis is the male sexual organ

ballot papers - the slips of paper used to vote in an election

a referendum - this is a special type of election in which the people of a country decide an important issue

European Union migration quotas - a quota is a number that has to be reached. So the EU wanted to establish a quota for each member country of how many refugees or migrants each country had to accept. Hungary's very conservative leader - Orban - did not want to accept the idea of a quota or many migrants. So he held a referendum hoping the people would support him and say "No" to a quota established by the EU.

to cast a vote - to submit a vote

to be deemed invalid - apparently 6.2 million people drew penises on their ballots and these were not considered to be real votes. If something is invalid, it is not legitimate, not to be accepted as real.

the poll - the referendum

grassroots - coming from the people, coming from the bottom up

to be offensive - this means some people are embarrassed by something or upset or shocked by it.

a euphemism for male genitalia - a 'nice' word for the male penis (so if a person doesn't want to say 'penis' in Hungary, I guess that person says 'tail').

dubious - doubtful, not real

to claim expense refunds - I think this means that if a party gets at least 500 votes for each of its candidates, the government pays them the amount of money they spent (or claimed to spend) running in the election. So the fake parties might be falsely claiming and receiving expenses if 500 people accidentally or stupidly vote for their candidates.

to perpetrate something - to cause something harmful or criminal

deemed - considered

a range - a wide variety of things

gorilla-guerrilla - a gorilla is a large ape, a guerrilla is a secret fighter

eternal life - life without end, no death

campaigning - running for office

perks - extra benefits of a job

a departure from clucking - clucking is a sound that chickens make. "Cluck cluck cluck!" He departed from clucking - he stopped clucking and moved to human speech.

spurring them into action - causing them to become more active; to spur something is to speed something up and make it happen faster

enhancing - making it better; so this party tries to take care of issues and matters the government neglects (doesn't pay attention to)

why did the chicken crossed the road? - should be: why did the chicken cross the road? This is an old joke. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

opposition parties - political parties that are trying to take over from the powerful, well-established parties

to rally behind someone or something - to come together for someone or something

a rival - a competitor, someone you are working against

undecided voters - people who cannot make up their minds

The young man suffering from "affluenza" has been released from jail

As I mentioned in a previous post, "affluenza" is supposedly a psychological problem that some rich kids suffer from. Affluence means wealth. If you are affluent, you are wealthy or rich. Influenza is a disease - influenza is actually "the flu". So a lawyer combined affluence and influenza to get "affluenza". 

According to this lawyer's definition of affluenza, some rich kids never learn the difference between right and wrong because their lives are so easy and comfortable. Their parents "spoil" them. To spoil a child means to not provide any discipline or guidelines for the child's behavior so that the child grows up to be completely selfish.

So when a young, rich guy became very drunk and killed 4 people, his lawyer claimed he was suffering from affluenza and should not be held accountable or responsible for his actions.

The article about this is here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/affluenza-teen-ethan-couch-released-jail-years-article-1.3910034

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

to serve a sentence - if a person is thrown in jail, he 'serves' his 'sentence'. In this case, the sentence was two years. A sentence is a period of time someone found guilty of a crime has to serve in jail.

a parole violation - in the USA, even though 1% of the population is currently in jail, judges often seem to be very lenient. Lenient is the opposite of strict. Judges tend to show a lot of mercy or sympathy when they sentence criminals. So this young guy was initially sentenced to parole. This means that as long as he stayed out of trouble for a certain amount of time, he would not be thrown in jail. As you will read, he failed to do this and was thrown in jail for two years. So to be on parole means to be conditionally free - under the condition that you do not act badly.

they ushered him - they escorted him, they accompanied him, they went with him

a media scrum - a large crowd of journalists all struggling with each other to get the best photograph or the best position to ask an interview question. A scrum literally happens in the sport of rugby, where many players, in a crowd, struggle to gain control of the ball.

a probation office - if you are on probation, it is basically the same thing as parole - you are expected to live according to high standards or you will be punished

court-ordered ankle monitor - he has to wear an electronic device around the lower part of his leg so that it can be determined whether he is at home or not. This has been ordered by the judge.

a joyride - to ride a car around dangerously for fun

bratty - you are a brat if you act spoiled; if you are very selfish and disrespectful and lacking in maturity, you are a brat or bratty

arrogance - the attitude that you are better than others

a chaplain - a religious person, like a priest, minister, rabbi or imam

furious - very angry; Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a group that advocates against drunk driving.

to adhere to his rules - to follow his rules

dysfunctional - it does not work the way it should; his family was not a normal family that could raise a mentally healthy kid

manslaughter - accidentally killing someone, but accidentally killing them through stupidity or a lack of caution

settled with relatives - they paid lots of money to these relatives

slain - killed

rehab - a process in which psychological experts help people overcome their addictions to alcohol

too broke - too poor

kicking it to taxpayers - passing it to taxpayers

treatment didn't seem to take - it didn't seem to work

beer pong - some stupid drinking game

blatant - obvious, no doubt about it

to be on the run - trying to escape from justice

extradited - sent from Mexico to the USA; if as person is extradited, he/she is wanted in another country and formally sent there

money laundering - I am not sure exactly what she did, but money laundering is usually when you use a business to hide the fact that you are making money illegally. So you might open a restaurant and claim that money you made illegally was made at the restaurant.

hindering the apprehension of a fugitive - to hinder means to make something more difficult; apprehension means catching someone; a fugitive means someone running from justice

a bid - an attempt

to toss or toss out - to throw away, get rid of

a model inmate - a perfect prisoner, someone very cooperative as a prisoner

a write up - if a jail guard 'writes up' a prisoner, it means the prisoner was accused of breaking a rule

impressive - if someone does something impressive, he has done something he/she should be proud of; to be impressed by someone means one thinks highly of that person or what that person did

a rampage - a wild and forceful action; the drunken driving of the car that led to a crash is referred to here as a rampage

rambunctious - not easily controlled, wild

a smirk - a smile someone makes to show he does not have respect for another person

How to finagle something for nothing from an airline

To finagle something from someone is to use deception or deceit or various tricks to get something from a person that he/she does not really want to give you.

United Airlines has been having a bad year. They have experienced a lot of bad publicity (bad stories about the company). The latest bad publicity was the death of Kokito - the French bulldog - in one of their overhead bins.

In this article we hear that a person was 'bumped' from a United flight because a seat on the plane was broken and one passenger had to be removed. 

United has a policy of asking for volunteers when passengers have to be removed and they reward the volunteers with a voucher for free travel if they help by leaving the plane.

If nobody volunteers, they 'bump' or remove the person who bought the cheapest ticket. Why? I am guessing they feel that the person who paid the least for a ticket will complain the least. This person is also given a voucher.

So they decided to bump someone who is a communications director for a company. This person has over 2,000 Twitter followers and when she was bumped she started bad-mouthing United to her twitter friends, hoping to create a new scandal for the airline (I am guessing). In order to avoid another scandal United gave this person a $10,000 voucher (so that she would shut up). But she did not shut up - she began boasting about how she finagled something valuable from the airline. So United just cannot seem to win these days.

Personally, I think she took advantage of the airline and she should be ashamed of herself. People do not even try to look at situations through anyone else's perspective any more. What else was the airline going to do? She only paid $160 for a ticket and they offered her a $1,000 voucher. Be a good person, take the $1,000 voucher and get on the next plane. No? Why does everyone have to be such a drama queen?

Please show some sympathy for United Airlines...

The article:

https://nypost.com/2018/03/23/passenger-scores-10k-flight-voucher-thanks-to-twitter-rant/

Vocabulary from the article:

a bumped passenger - a passenger who is removed from an airline flight, often because the airline has sold more tickets than seats available

to score a voucher - to win a voucher, to score something is to get something valuable for free or at a discount.  e.g. Hey! I scored free tickets to the Chicago Sympathy Orchestra concert tonight! My roommate can't go and he gave them to me!

k  - 1,000, so 10K = 10,000

a tirade - a long speech where a person expresses anger; when a person expresses anger verbally for a long time. e.g. Our boss was so angry about losing this client that he went on a 30 minute tirade telling us all that we suck!

to finagle something from someone - to get something you do not deserve by using psychological games or by tricking the other person

to be smarting - to be suffering, to be feeling pain.  Even though I fell skiing 3 days ago, my left knee is still smarting.

a string of something - a sequence of something. So if you have had 5 bad boyfriends in a row, you might say, "Wow, I have had a string of 5 bad boyfriends, when is my luck going to change?!"

public relations - every big company has a public relations department. This department tries to make the company look good. If you have a public relations disaster, it means things have happened to make your company look bad.  

smarting from a string of public relations disasters - United is suffering from a bunch of bad news stories in a row

a company rep - a company representative

she got the boot - she got kicked off the plane, she was removed from the plane.  e.g. Wow our company is firing a lot of people these days! I heard three people from our department got the boot today. or: Our boss gave the boot to three people from our department today.

to be enraged - to be very, very angry

to vent about something - to complain about something in order to make yourself feel better. e.g. Sorry for calling you and telling you this, I just had to vent!

if nobody bites - if nobody accepts the offer.  If you go fishing you put something attractive to the fish on your hook and hope a fish bites. If you offer something to a group of people, you hope someone bites.

on the upside - the good news is

I wasn't physically dragged off the plane etc. - this is sarcasm, she is saying thank God United didn't beat me up like Dr. Dao or kill my dog like Kokito.

United upped its offer - it increased its offer

to toss in a perk - to throw in an extra benefit; a perk is an added benefit

Affluence - Affluenza (Catch this disease!!!!)

Affluence means wealth. If you are an affluent person, you are a rich or wealthy person.

Recently a rich young man killed two people with his car. His lawyer said that he should not be punished because he was not responsible for his actions. His wealthy parents, because they were so wealthy, never taught their son the difference between right and wrong. So they never taught him how to be an ethical or moral (good) person.

Should wealthy children be shown mercy when they commit crimes because their parents do not teach them to be ethical? 

I think that affluenza must be a difficult disease to catch, since you need to have about $25 million in your bank account first.

The article:

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/03/20/affluenza-texan-who-killed-four-while-driving-drunk-to-be-freed-from-jail/23391020/

Vocabulary from the article:

affluenza - the disease of not knowing what is right or wrong because your parents were very rich and never taught you to be good

probation supervision - he will have to report to an office every month to be checked on

juvenile court - court for children

testifying on his behalf - speaking for him in court

an affliction - a disease or painful condition

to be spoiled - when your parents let you do anything you want and do not show any kind of discipline toward you or they do not set good standards for your behavior

fled - flee, fled, fled...they ran away

fatalities - deaths

the sentence - this means the punishment in this instance

it spanned the systems - it carried over from the juvenile to the adult system

excessive - too much

to place him behind bars - to put him in jail

hindering the apprehension of someone - making it harder for the police to catch someone

a fugitive - someone running away from justice

money laundering - making money illegally and then hiding it in a real, legal business

The curious case of that dog (Kokito) dying on an airplane

Yes, that was Kokito, the dog which died in the overhead bin (compartment) of an airplane recently.

Many people around the world are quite angry at the flight attendant for ordering a passenger to place the dog in the overhead bin. Yet, I think that the flight attendant was under a great deal of pressure and this was just an unfortunate accident.

Furthermore, the carrier could not have been left in the aisle and it was too large, apparently, to be placed under a seat. If the flight attendant was only providing the option of the overhead bin, perhaps the passenger should have just taken her dog and left the airplane. I am confused as to why the passenger did not simply ask that the dog be placed in the cargo hold (with the luggage and other dogs).

They are still talking about possibly arresting the flight attendant, which I think would be an over-reaction. Perhaps this airline needs a better training program to help their employees problem-solve difficult situations better.

In any case, there is some excellent vocabulary in this article.

The article:

https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/dogs-death-on-united-flight-could-lead-to-criminal-charges/

Vocabulary from the article: 

criminal charges - if the police want to arrest someone for murder, for example, they may say, "We are charging you with murder! You are under arrest!"  So to be charged with something means to be formally accused of something. A criminal charge is an accusation. The police are claiming that you did something wrong.

a probe - an investigation

to be launched - if something is launched, it is begun. e.g. We are going to launch a new website soon.

to stow something - to store something or to put something away.

animal cruelty - when a person unnecessarily harms an animal.

a task force - a group expected to solve or address a problem.

a prosecutor - a lawyer for the government who tries to find people who are accused of crimes to be guilty.

to be warranted - to be necessary, reasonable, justified

a backlash - when you experience a negative reaction to something you did

to contradict someone or something - to say something opposite of what another person said. A person can also contradict him/herself. "Yesterday you told me you would be busy next week and could not come over, but now you just mentioned you have the whole week free. You just contradicted yourself!"

to back up someone's account - to verify the story, to agree that the story is correct

to prompt s/o to do s/t - to cause someone to do something

inexcusable - wrong to the point where you can't make any legitimate excuses as to why it happened

cargo - stuff that is being carried in a plane or ship; so the politician is saying animals are not like products that are being transported from one destination to another.

a cargo hold - the place where cargo is stored while a plane is in flight

a bill - if a bill is passed by the Congress it becomes a law; to file a bill is to put a bill up for debate and a vote

alleged - supposed, apparent, possible

to be acclimated to - to be used to something, to have gotten used to something; so some animals just do not get used to their carriers or crates (boxes) and perhaps die of stress or heart attacks

to tout something - to boast about something, to speak proudly of something

to deem something to have occurred - to consider or determine that something occurred because of something else 

The US Supreme Court will make a significant ruling on unions and union fees

So let's say you get a job with the New York state government. You will now be represented by a non-governmental union. A union is an organization that protects the rights of the workers within the union. They negotiate salaries and benefits and attempt to protect their membership as much as they can.

The union automatically will receive a small percentage of your salary. This is automatically taken out of your paycheck by the government and sent to the union. The problem is that many people do not care whether they are represented by a union or not. In fact, many do not want to be in a union and do not want money taken out from their paycheck and sent to a union. The unions and the government have an agreement, however, to remove money from paychecks and send this money to the unions.

So, EVEN IF you do not want to be in one of these unions, the government takes a fee out of your salary anyway and sends it to the union. The unions have argued that even people who are not in unions are protected by unions, so they should have to pay a fee as well.

A guy in Illinois, who works for the Illinois state government, did not want to be in a union and does not want any of his paycheck going to the union. He claims that these unions usually support Democratic political candidates (they do) and he is a Republican - he does not want any of his salary to go to an organization that will contribute money to Democratic candidates. 

The Supreme Court will soon determine whether these unions of government workers have a right to take money out of every government worker's salary. I have a feeling the Supreme Court will rule against the unions in this case, especially since the current US Supreme Court is quite conservative and Republican (not liberal and Democratic).

The article:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/25/politics/scotus-union-nonmember-case/index.html

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

will wade into a clash - if you are at the beach and you slowly walk into the water, you wade into the water. The Supreme Court will enter into this argument (clash) between unions and non-union members. They will wade into the controversy the way a person wades into water, slowly and forcefully.

organized labor - unions (organized workers - labor often means workers)

conservative groups - if someone is conservative he/she tends to support business and low taxes. Conservatives are generally anti-union (against unions). They believe that businesses should not be monitored or regulated very strictly.

a precedent - something that happened before and that is a guide to all future action. 

deal a potentially crippling blow to - to deal a blow means to hit someone or something. A crippling blow is when you hit a person so hard he can no longer walk. So to deal a crippling blow to something is to ruin or destroy it.

contentious - if an issue is contentious, people are arguing about it

pivotal - a moment of great change (the USA is becoming much more conservative, but this seems to be a cyclical situation. In 1976 there was a liberal president, Carter. In 1980 he was replaced by Reagan, a conservative, and Reagan and Bush, another conservative, were president until 1992. Clinton, a liberal, took over until 2000. G.W. Bush (son of G.H. Bush), conservative, took over until 2008. Obama was a liberal and now Trump is a conservative.)

protesters - people who do not like something and gather to express their disapproval

to flood the court - to enter the court in large numbers

the debate - the argument

public sector unions - unions of government workers

pertaining to - in regard to

employee grievances - employee complaints. So the existing law says that non union members can be charged by unions because the unions will help them with complaints etc.

a compromise - both sides gave in a little bit, neither side completely won

to be overturned - to be completely changed to the opposite

a challenge - a challenge to the law allows fees to be collected from non-union members. So the new Supreme Court Justice, who was appointed by Trump, will probably decide who wins this case. He is conservative.

to be germane to something - to be relevant to something, to legitimately apply to something

issues germane to collective bargaining are inherently political - unions engage in collective bargaining, meaning they negotiate for the whole group (collective)...and the guy who brought this case to the court says that collective bargaining is a political process in itself (inherently). Therefore, he should not be forced to support a political organization. He is saying all unions are political.

The First Amendment - this is a part of the Constitution which protects many of an American's rights, especially a person's right to 'free speech'. He is saying that if he is forced to give money to a political organization, his free speech rights are being violated.

to subsidize the speech of a third party - to pay for the message of a political party

advocacy - to advocate for something means to speak in favor of it. So the guy, Janus, is saying that Illinois is heavily in debt, but these unions keep demanding higher and higher salaries for their workers, and this is killing his state. He does not want to be a part of this.

the current fiscal situation - the current economic situation of Illinois, which sucks.

a stagnant economy - an economy which is not moving, seems dead. A stagnant body of water has old, rotten, polluted water in it.

the case boils down to - the central issue of the case is.....

coffers - budgets

to file a brief - in an important Supreme Court case, all kinds of organizations will 'file briefs', meaning they will send documents to the Supreme Court advocating for a certain decision.

to impose - to force