All out on the streets
The chestnuts are about to ripen. Meanwhile, the President of the Government begins a musical tour in Seville that will take him - without a tie and in a Falcon - to two dozen socialist fiefdoms to "listen to his altar boys".
Here we have a man who does not consult with anyone on such transcendental decisions as handing over the Sahara to Morocco without knowing why, and who wants to learn from the grassroots. It's grotesque. For such a feat he did not talk to his socialist and communist government, nor to his minister of Foreign Affairs or to the Parliament. This is a month for classical theatre similar to Mérida and Almagro. And with versions of Zarzuela. It's a time for open-air performances. And at night because of the heat.
Taking advantage of the audiences given to Caesar, the Secretary General has to harangue his hosts to attack the PP and VOX mercilessly and save Commander Griñán, an honest man. Since he is leading the procês, after the pardon will come the amnesty for the coup plotters. The procedure will be the same. First, pardons. Then, amnesty. He has forgotten the third degree. With this preventive surrender, the Catalans will end up carrying out the coup d'état. And the corrupt, the corrupt politicians, businessmen and trade unionists of the ERES and those of the Training Courses, will continue to corrupt the system. Sánchez must immediately assume the portfolio of Grace (without Justice) to put everyone on the street.
The second vice-president Yolanda Diaz has encouraged the unions to take to the streets in September, not to protest against the government for the high cost of living but against the employers to raise the minimum wage, demand 10% increases and ruin Spain. The CEOE does not want to make the election campaign to this lady who wants to add for the PSOE because the girl is very cool but has a hundred times more ambition than talent.
You only have to go shopping to find out how pissed off people are. This very socialist government has not been able to ensure that books are bought every 10 years by the local councils, that they are handed over to families and that they are digitally updated. Each child costs 400 euros per course in order not to break the progressive ideology and the monopoly of PRISA - ANAYA on textbooks. Those affected will, of course, take to the streets. And what about the self-employed, farmers, stockbreeders, lorry drivers, traders, bars and restaurants. And the civil servants and pensioners. These too want to take to the streets in September. "The good thing about this" - as they say in Cuba - "is how bad it's getting".
My lies expire
The CPI, the PP's majority in Andalusia, the "Feijóo effect", the fires, the drought, the energy deficit and Tezanos' internal polls force the PSOE oligarch to travel thousands of kilometres until the end of the year. The Caucasian chalk circle has been falsely closed. Without the seats from the south and Catalonia, there is no way to form a government. Not even a repeat of the Frankenstein formula. Illa's PSC will suffer a notable decline for its collaborationism with ERC for murdering Spanish in the classrooms. The constitutionalists will not forgive such cowardice, even if the Sánchez-Aragonés objective is to expel the troops of the fled Puigdemont and form a third tripartite with Ana Colau's Comunes. For this reason, the votes of ERV-Bildu are a unique package for governability in the face of the unknowns of Podemos-Sumar and the volatility of the PNV.
This marathon journey is the best scenario for desperately insulting the main opposition party and, in particular, its president and Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Madrid is the PSOE's unfinished business. And it will not pass it either in September or in May 2023. The pandemic, the fires, the lack of water and energy forecasts weigh too heavily on the collective imagination.
The MidCat for Italy is a crazy Plan B. Macron beat him to the punch in Algiers. "Sanchez is the problem, not the Spanish people", reiterated President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Trade relations remain broken. And the flow of oil and gas is reduced. At the same time, Rabat modulates the arrival of small boats at will after the invasions of Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands. The colonisation of the Balearic Islands arrives in boats and outboards from the Algerian and Libyan coasts, which do not allow either hot or cold returns.
The lies of the Ministers of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Economy and Industry - "everything is going very well" - have expired. The truth is that our energy sovereignty has worsened and we are now more dependent on Moscow than before the war against Ukraine. Six months and six days after the Russian "Z" invasion, Zelenski complains bitterly about President Pérez-Castejón's unfulfilled promises. Miss Pepis' - I mean Margarita Robles' - Leopards are not even good for scrap. Our solidarity with the Ukrainian people is the same as that of Luxembourg (640,000 inhabitants). And yet Putin is responsible for all our ills. The imposture and lies of this government have had an expiry date since the very day they came to power. They promised elections now and took nine months to call them.
Hot winter
With the temperature of the establishments at 27 degrees the autumn will be hotter than ever. The CPI (10.8%, the highest in almost 40 years) is the most powerful and direct punishment to the middle and lower classes. Going shopping is heroic. The US Federal Reserve and the French president have already said that "the era of abundance is over". Spain is still the kingdom of Neverla. Calviño and her economic Peter Pan are deceiving us by repeating without conviction that the recession is not coming and that the "shoots of hope" will blossom in October.
The approval of the energy decree was of little use. Up to 11 ministers mercilessly beat Núñez Feijóo and the president launched a "knock out" from Colombia. The farce that the popular votes were decisive to move forward this parliamentary initiative is part of the parliamentary theatre. Podemos, PNV, ERC and Bildu will not abandon the president because they are a pluralistic anti-Spain bloc. Sánchez is leading this coalition on the strength of his chequebook.
Last week we learned, via the governmental BOE in the morning, that García Egea had signed a secret document with the Count Duke of Buñuelos - I mean with the Favourite Bolaños - to definitively hand over the CGPJ and the TC - Justice - to the Government. When will we know the agreements Lastra-Bildu, Marlasca-PNV, Bolaños-Generalitat and the agenda of the Mesa del Diálogo, better known as the Mesa de la Rendición preventiva y de la vergüenza? And the content of the data stolen from Mr. President and Miss Roblespierre by Pegassus? I'll tell you in advance. Never. It will all be classified and confidential under the new Official Secrets Act. Censorship, abolished in 1964 with the Fraga Law, returns with force and with fines capable of burying and banishing all dissidence. War on the privately-owned press. We are back to NO-DO.
This government of self-promotion and transparency is the most opaque of all democracy. The last extraordinary plenary session in August was a tragala where the Royal Decree-Laws destroyed democracy and parliamentarism a little more. Even his partners complain that Moncloa does not consult them at all. The BOE enshrines all the outrages of this Executive that imposes its pharaonic will. And the cruelest thing is that it always says that it has been in dialogue with all the social agents, parties and Autonomous Regions.
If you don't vote for his impositions you are against the workers, against the students and you have no sense of state. And if you vote in favour, as the PP has done with the decree on fires and the self-employed, Fejoo is still a lazy, ignorant, sectarian or extremist. To take his enabling laws to the TC is fascist. VOX is the mirror. They shoot the same from the Council of Ministers as from Ferraz or the Parliament.
And speaking of the TC, there are only a few hours to go before the Government appeals the decree of the Generalitat annulling the ruling of the TSJC so that 25% of subjects can be studied in Spanish. Do you think the Government, the Socialist GP or the Ombudsman will appeal? The answer is no because "politics must be de-judicialised". I ask you: have you ever seen Pedro Sánchez do anything at home or abroad that benefits Spain's interests? I have not.
Just in case there weren't enough of us, grandma gave birth to us. And here we have Yolanda Diez, second vice-president of nothing, encouraging the vertical unions (UGT and CC.OO.) to occupy the streets; not against the government and the rise in the CPI but against the Employers to raise the SMI again to 1,150 euros. It is clear that this woman has a free house, a free car, a free salary, a free wardrobe, a free Falcon and an ambition and an ego a hundred times greater than her political talent. In view of her failure with SUMAR, she encourages the subsidised unions to set fire to the streets against a bosses who do not want to make her the demagogic campaign to build a new country (she never says Spain) in the third decade of the century.
I have been analysing political ideas for seven lustrums. I have never seen a single sensible and decent idea from this PCE militant lady. Everything about her is "cool". I am sure she will import her programme directly from Cuba now that there is a lack of water and oil and the power cuts extend fourteen hours a day. Surely she will surprise us in her "listenings with the people" by promising to introduce the rationing card.
Inciting the corrupt trade unions to "squat" in the streets against the bosses in Parliament confirms that she is still, like her father, a professional agitator. And well paid with taxpayers' money. She has subsidised the class unions to join her impossible project. I reiterate: she will finish second to Sánchez in the 2023 general elections.
In the heat of the night, I read a few weeks ago that volunteers from her political chiringuito were asking for money on the beaches for such a noble cause of the lady of the daily dresses. Too bad I didn't get the chance to help because I didn't go to the beach. I suggest that you support a day - what do I mean a day, a leap month of fundraising! - to raise funds to support your candidacy for La Moncloa. And with an extra 100 euro bonus for those who proudly wear the leader's LGTBI slogan on their lapel: "Existo, luego te jodes" (I exist, so fuck you). With her irresponsibilities, she will end up heating up the winter and, maybe, we will save part of the heating bill. Sánchez will eclipse her communist hegira and they will end up kicking her out of Podemos for incompetence.
King for a day
I was not surprised when the announcer of the meeting with Dr Petro introduced the cum Fraude Sánchez as president of the Government of the Republic of Spain. The president's Etruscan smile at feeling like head of state for a second explains his unhealthy narcissism. It was the most sublime moment of his life. He was unable to rectify it. He could not. After the attacks on King Felipe VI, it is hard to believe that this presentation was not premeditated and consensual. It had to be Gustavo Petro, former M-19 terrorist and current Colombian prime minister, who corrected his position. In the end, the chief of protocol called him president of the government of the Kingdom of Spain and a doctor.
Why did he go to Central America? To duck the energy debate and to offer Spain as the venue for talks between the FLN guerrillas and the government when it has already been announced that they will resume in Havana, with the Cuban secret services keeping an eye on the business. He ignored Guaidó. Neither in Colombia, nor in Ecuador nor in Honduras has he had a single critical word against the rogue and corrupt populisms of Latin America. No support for the Argentine Prosecutor's Office for accusing Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kichner of embezzlement of public funds. Prosecutor Luciani has asked for 12 years in prison and life disqualification from public office.
President Alberto Fernández awkwardly asked the anti-corruption prosecutor to remember what happened to his colleague Nisman in the AMIA case, an Iranian bombing of the Jewish headquarters in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured two hundred. He was found in his home with a bullet in his head the day before his defence in court. Officially, he committed suicide. Nobody believed it. We were not surprised by the lightning trip of Pablo Iglesias to show solidarity with Cristina. Nor the solidarity of the prevaricating judge Baltasar Garzón. Both men believe that the mother of Florencia, the Kirchners' youngest daughter who was found with 400 million dollars in a personal account, is the victim of a conspiracy by the justice system and the media.
She herself proclaims her innocence and sees the trial as "an attack on Peronism, the Argentine people and the workers". Cristina has already called on the "campora" to take to the streets to defend her honesty. "We are all Cristina", stressed Hebe de Bonafini, her most loyal defender. The leader of the Mothers of May believes that the United States is to blame for everything. To top it all off, a former Attorney General of the Republic assures that "Cristina has to be pardoned and amnestied" to avoid greater evils. With constitutional guarantees, CFdeK (who receives four monthly salaries: as vice-president, as former president, as senator and as Kichner's widow) will not go to prison because of her age: she turns 70 in 2023, she is still protected and will be so when she runs for president in 2024.
It is said that the president has travelled to Latin America to gather support for the presidency of the Socialist International, which renews its mandate, and to postulate himself as an extraordinary "ambassador" to the EU in view of the presidency that Spain will hold from July to December next year. Anything is possible, but what has not transpired is what kind of trade commitments he has achieved on this trip. And tomorrow, to Berlin.
Reform of the pardon law
The pardon of Junqueras and his associates for sedition and embezzlement of public funds puts Sánchez in a bit of a bind. In 2015 he was scandalised by "pardons for politicians granted by politicians". He said it was immoral. Of course, as Carmen Calvo would explain, he said that before he became president. Now, after betraying his promise in the last election campaign that "the coup perpetrators would serve their full sentences in prison", he has changed his mind. If he pardoned the rebels for crimes as serious as wanting to break the unity of Spain, how is he going to deny that grace to the honourable and honest Griñán? Griñán's own family will ask for it and it will be endorsed by the Party's heavyweights and 500 signatures from professors, PNN, the cultural elite, the talk-show hosts close to those in power. And liberal professionals and, logically, the left-wing political parties and corrupt trade unions.
And what will become of the amnesty? It will come soon after. Sánchez will take over the new Ministry of Grace (without Justice). And everyone will be out on the streets. The terrorists endorsed by Bildu and PNV; the coup plotters by the Generalitat. Special case to treat Puigdemont and "exiles" in Waterloo with generosity. And the twenty condemned officials in the Andalusian ERES, - including my Maleni - as well as the disqualified Manuel Chaves and the good Juan Antonio Griñán? None of them will return a single euro to the public coffers. Unfortunately.
By the way, we could pardon and then amnesty the entire Pujol-Ferrusola family. And Rato, the Bigotes, Ignacio González and Bárcenas and his wife. And rapists, parricides, paedophiles, murderers, traffickers of conscience, white-collar thieves, drug dealers and sexual exploiters addicted to Sí es sí. And all illegally arrived immigrants.
And let this serve as a precedent for the cases pending trial in the imperial Andalusia of socialism (non-existent training courses, corrupt trade unions and businessmen, civil servants who looked the other way, etc.) Everyone to the streets. A reflection: without law there is no law, without law there is no democracy. And without democracy there are no freedoms. Glory to Judge Alaya!
It is time to reform and update the law of pardon (1870). And time to exclude political corruption. But neither this government nor those to come will do it because economic and political corruption - the worst evil of our democracy - would force the politicians themselves to be unable to pardon and amnesty themselves. The president pardons the separatists because he is now the master of the process. And the secretary general of the Socialist Party of which Manolo and José Antonio were presidents. In reality, they are following in the footsteps of Prieto, Largo Caballero, Gallarza and Negrín.
And to the streets, everyone to the streets too, so that we do not lack water to drink and to put out the fires. Water transfers now, because water belongs to everyone. Desalination plants for Mrs Narbona until she convinces us that it is better that the water goes into the sea and then we desalinate it. With the biannual overflows of the Ebro there is enough water to supply Levante, Murcia and Almeria for five years. Not retaining water is another form of corruption.
We insist on the need for a National Hydrological Plan that takes advantage of and intercommunicates all the basins. This will be the subject of other Bays. Let's go ahead and say that occupying the streets, here and now according to the progressives, is a dress rehearsal with everything for the day after losing power. Come September, not everything will be wonderful.
Antonio REGALADO directs Bahía de Ítaca in: aregaladorodriguez.blogspot.com