Brazil’s Right Wing Protest Funded by U.S. Billionaire Foundations, Training in U.S.*

By Catherine Osborn

At every turn of Brazil’s political crisis — today it’s ex-president Lula’s struggle to take a spot in President Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet — there is a group of protagonists looking familiar who are neither politicians nor anti-corruption investigators.

They are young, organized right-wing demonstrators, and they may be a scale-tipping force in the question of whether Brazil’s Congress votes to impeach the current president.

Engineering student Pedro Souto, 22, rode atop one of the soundcars with a Brazilian flag draped around his shoulders like a Superman cape during Rio’s Sunday protest. More than 200,000 people turned out. The soundcar had a banner announcing the Free Brazil Movement, or Movimento Brasil Livre, one of the main groups that organized nationwide protests on March 13 and that continues to call members to the streets with each new development in Brazil’s political drama…