The blow that does not cease

"Under the mask of recklessness great fears are hidden", we learnt in Lucan. 

The separatist delinquents and those in Moncloa have torn up the Penal Code, undermined the Constitution, disarmed the State and left the Spanish judiciary defenseless before the European Union. All in one fell swoop with a four-way carom: the coup plotters, the fugitives and those who gather the nuts in the Basque Country: PNV and Bildu. So much for that. The fourth beneficiary is the august Pedro Sánchez, who is gaining time and money to become president of the EU in the second half of 2023. He will ride around the world in a Falcon like a pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty. And he will remain in power. 

Never in one week have so many things happened, and so perverse. But nothing ever happens. Sánchez appeared in his mansion for life to explain to us all that we are idiots. And imbeciles. He lied when he said he was going to modify the Penal Code to Europeanise the crime of sedition. He did away with it with the stroke of a pen. He will eliminate it with his National Socialist majority and replace it with "aggravated public disorder". Like a brawl after a high-stakes football match. In other words, it reduces the penalties from 15 to 5 years' imprisonment. A gift. 

He deliberately lied when he claimed that the crime of secession was from 1822. The current one was reformed in 1995. He omitted that the law of Grace and Justice by which he granted the pardons to Junqueras and company was from 1870. He did not tell the truth when he said that, in our environment, this crime does not exist. In Germany it is called High Treason and is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment. In France, attacks on the unity of the territory and the Republic are punishable by 30 years in prison, in Italy by 12 to 20 years and in Portugal by up to 20 years and life imprisonment. Pedro lies, in a whispering voice as if from beyond the grave, and he always lies beyond his means.

To be clear: this year the Public Prosecutor's Office has asked for five years in prison for a neighbour for playing music too loud; five years for two people for providing free films and football on the Internet and five years for eight people for selling used cars. Today, the social-communist government considers that a coup d'état deserves a maximum sentence of five years. Compatriots: that is prevarication and treason. A crime against national sovereignty. 

We already know that Dr. Sánchez is slippery about everything. The caesar imperator, leading a herd of anti-Spanish sharks, has accepted the thesis of Aragonés, who has already anticipated that he welcomes the blowing up of the Penal Code, but demands more: the cessation of repression, the referendum and amnesty. In other words, that the next hatchet job, which the economist-president is co-leading, should come free of charge. 

Sánchez-Pérez Castejón has mimicked Woody Allen's character. He changes his skin and his principles at will. Eliminating the crime of sedition from the Criminal Code culminates his political chameleonism. After the 2017 coup, he proclaimed that the coup was simply rebellion. He promised to bring Puigdemont in and take him to jail because "who is in charge in the Public Prosecutor's Office? Well, that's who". He dethroned Rajoy with the bad arts of the magistrate de Prada and the prevaricating judge Baltasar Garzón, and his legs trembled. It is a lie that he made explicit on the day of investiture to change the crime of secession. A lie. The Diario de Sesiones does not record it. He is lying again. It was there that he realised that he needed ERC. It was in 2020 when he realised that the republican coup plotters had him by... where it hurts. After his trips to Barcelona he has surrendered unconditionally and has also acquired the Stockholm syndrome. 

They have been deceiving the PP for the renewal of the organs of the General Council of the Judiciary, but it was all just another smokescreen. They needed time to fulfil with the Catalan Generalitat the secret compromises reached in the Mesa de la Vergüenza. This change in regulations is in itself another coup d'état. "You tell me that such coups d'état are necessary. I reply that what is disastrous and criminal is never necessary", we read in Joseph Joubert. 

The urgency of the betrayal demanded an express procedure, via the Council of Ministers, so as not to listen to either the Council of State or the CGPJ. This is the Sánchez of dialogue and transparency who governs by means of the BOE - increasingly more coup-plotting - after reaching the conclusion that "he is going to avoid coups d'état by suppressing the State". The jurisconsult Sánchez, as Inés Arrimadas rightly says, always on the edge of the abyss. 

It is easy to ask and deduce why we have come this far. Now we need a response in the streets and in the Cortes to explain to this Executive outside the law and the Constitution that we have come this far. Each decision is one more step in the Viacrucis towards collective suicide. This pardon and disarmament of the Nation is a "covert self-amnesty" that leaves the events of 1-0 outside the law. And the events of today. 

If there is no sedition, there is no embezzlement either. So I say: all of them to the street. The state must compensate them for damages, prejudice and repression. We already know that this government is always very generous with white-collar criminals and those who shoot people in the back of the head. Puigdemont says that the PSOE has made him offers for his return. And Sánchez knows it. He is silent and concedes. 

At the same time, the Attorney General's Office - pardon the digression - refuses, as requested by the EU, to open cases against the leaders of ETA, Ternera, Txapote and Txeroki (three little angels) to clarify the 400 unsolved murders of the Basque terrorist group. The PSOE voted yes in the Strasbourg Parliament. Pure socialist coherence for whom the word has no value. 

Why such a reckless decision? Firstly because Mr Sánchez has reached a dead end and secondly because he trusts the coming Constitutional Court. 

Conde Pumpido has told his friends: "Zapatero appointed me Attorney General of the State and I put an end to the ETA problem; now I have been nominated for president of the Constitutional Court and I will put an end to the problem in Catalonia". Prevarication wholesale. This was the guy who said in the Senate - I was there - that he "didn't mind getting his robe stained" - with blood, I suppose - "with the dust of the road". 

Moncloa and Ferraz have only one monothema: the municipal and regional elections next May and the general elections in November. If necessary, the "Party" will be established by decree (I mean by Royal Decree-Law) for the greater honour and glory of our beloved leader. Let it be broadcast on a network. And with unique editorials. 

The text of the extinction of sedition was drafted in Barcelona and a couple of commas and a full stop were changed in the Presidency. ERC intends to become the Convergencia y Unión of the future (3% by means of). The president, delighted to take a decision that carpets coexistence in Catalonia while contradicting the Supreme Court on the penalties and the seriousness of the crime. 

In short: Mr. Sánchez becomes the real judiciary. The three powers in the same hands: Mr PSP-C supreme pontiff of the unbelieving believers. No limits, no controls. Peter against the world. Disillustrated authoritarianism. 

The necessary accomplice for the next coup to come to fruition without Army, CNI, Civil Guard, National Police and once the competences in long-distance trains, roads, ports, airports, sea, coasts and borders have been handed over. Out with the State of Catalonia and the Basque Country as Bildu demands! Out!!! 

And on top of that, he has the nerve to claim that "Catalonia is better off now than it was in 2017". We Spaniards ask ourselves another question: Is Catalonia closer to independence today than it was in 2017? Of course it is. 

There is one small stumbling block: the Monarchy. Sánchez humiliates the king every chance he gets (most recently on 12 October in Madrid). Delaying the ceremony of the Princess of Asturias as heiress until spring 2024 is a manoeuvre by the twisted president because he thinks and acts like the real president of the III Republic. This man is more dangerous and cynical every day. 

ERC solves the PGE for him and between Tezanos, PRISA, la Sexta, RTVE, SER with the indecent IBEX 35 and the invisible billions of the Next Generation -when will a judicial investigation be launched?-, the consciences of the poor against the rich can be greased to vote exclusively PSOE. 

Patxi López presented the parliamentary initiative to bring us into line with EU regulations. He lies almost like his boss. There is no such directive. Although 48 hours earlier on Onda Cero he had denied that there was an alternative text on sedition, he admitted that they had been working on it for months and that it was the right moment after the PP's walkout in the negotiations on the CGPJ. 

The Socialist town crier's definitive statement was the following confession: "this is the PSOE as always". Feijóo should lose all hope of negotiating with "another Socialist Party". Undoubtedly, the PS is the direct heir to that of Largo Caballero, Prieto and Negrín. Three thieves who led us straight into civil war. 

Inés Arrimadas, orphaned of seats, believes that the criminals of the Moncloa and ERC must be stopped with a motion of censure. Cuca Gamarra has undiplomatically asked her to return to Catalonia. Núñez Feijóo, not recovered from the transoceanic "lag jet", has said that he will revert this regulation, which will penalise the calling of referendums, and asks the PSOE's mid-level officials to vote no. Preaching in the desert. 

Page was funny: "it turns out that in times of rising prices," he said, "the cheapest thing to do is to attack the Constitution". Of course, dear resident. Insults to the Royal Family, to the Constitution and to national symbols (institutions, flag, anthem) have already been decriminalised. Firewood to the monkey that is made of rubber. 

Lambán says he is against sedition, but his deputies and senators will vote the opposite of what they feel "because they do not want to play the game of the PP that wants to overthrow the Government of Spain". Vara, from Extremadura, is always exemplary, having sent him off with a tweet: "Rajoy was given two coups d'état; Sánchez has regained peace". OK. 

Santiago Abascal will speak for VOX next Monday. We await his political and legal measures. They can range - criticisms included - from a motion of censure to a criminal complaint for prevarication, including street mobilisation. The response is already late. 

The Basque and Galician nationalists have congratulated themselves. Urcullu always goes further and has called for the abolition of Art. 155 of the Constitution. Only Sánchez knows the shortcut to do so. We trust him. 

The president complained about the inheritance received from Rajoy. We have reached this point because Zapatero endorsed the Statute of Catalonia, which was a Constitution for rupture. It is true that Don Mariano and Soraya were cowards. That was a mess! But it all began, in reality, with ZP, Maragall, Montilla and the Pact of Tinel. Salvador Illa is an ERC minion. As Iceta's PSC has always been to Pujol, Mas, Puigdemont, Torra and now Aragonés. All pushing the damned procés. 

One last thought: tell me a democratic country where legislation is tailored to criminals. I'll tell you: Spain. 

Personally, I was not surprised by the sedition time bomb. It went off just when Minister Marlaska was on the ropes for his impossible lies in Ceuta. Or in Melilla. It doesn't matter. The Interior Minister has done the best dirty work for Sánchez: whitewashing Bildu and bringing more than 300 ETA members closer so that they can taste turrón at home for Christmas. 

The last thing he did was to send several medals to relatives of victims of terrorism by post -expressly, of course-. He did not have the guts to hand them over personally, lest Otegui get angry. 

The BBC report accusing of moving corpses from no man's land to Morocco clashes with the lies of this minister, lord and master of Pegasus secrets. He has the Guardia Civil there with obsolete equipment. And without protection. The same as in the Campo de Gibraltar. This is the guy Sánchez praises. He considers him indispensable. Just like that. 

And what does the director general of the Guardia Civil do apart from attending PSA rallies? She has been swallowed up by the earth. Marlaska is a big dog and the criticisms from the left, from ERC to Podemos, including vice Diaz, are just posturing. There will be no commission of enquiry, nor will the most unworthy interior minister in democracy resign. The condescension of the government with those who encourage and allow the uncontrolled human avalanches to invade our North African cities is surprising. 

The grotesque spectacle of Pablo Iglesias in his "Uni de Otoño" betrays a man who has become the dog in the manger. What he said to Yolanda Díaz, "respect us, we have made you a minister", ratifies us in the idea that the assault on the skies of those below is a totalitarian invasion. Is there anything more chauvinist than that phrase and the philosophy it embodies? Yes. That of the one who consents to form a coalition government, Mr. Sánchez, who can change the foundations of the Nation, colonise the institutions and perpetuate himself in power for the next 1000 years but who cannot dismiss the Podemos ministers imposed on him by Iglesias himself. 

The Labour minister is a political bluff; she is playing with her travelling comrades and is relying on trade unionists to vote for her after showering them generously with subsidies for seafood. Since he appeared on the political scene - after Pablo's collapse in Madrid thanks to Ayuso - I've heard only one idea from him: "I'm working my ass off for my country". He is Sánchez's puppet to play with Podemos. From so much listening she neither adds nor subtracts nor divides. She will end up multiplied by zero and she will be Sánchez's back-up in the next general elections, like the prevaricating lawyer Garzón in 1993. 

We close the fortnight with an outrage in sight: Correos publishes a stamp of 0.75 cents commemorating the centenary of the PCE, which was last year. Pure Sanchist revenge. They have no shame. That's where I leave it.

The international campaign to find out who Sanchez and his government is will do a lot of damage to Spain after the European Parliament's express condemnation of Nazism and communism as totalitarian and genocidal regimes. Hammer and sickle means hunger and death. It seems that a judge will prevent it from going on sale. 

And more waste of taxpayers' money: the Spanish Chancellor, José Manuel Albares, has asked the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to authorise the use of Catalan and Basque in speeches and translations in the institution. The Maltese will reply shortly. The answer is the same as always: it will be allowed if you, the Spanish, pay for it. We will pay for it. The cold drop hits Levante and the transport strike threatens to make our Christmas Eve bitter. 

But let's go back to the beginning: the lightning that does not cease, by Miguel Hernández; I mean, the blow that does not cease by Sánchez. The stalactite is ready to tear the Magna Carta to pieces. The president has embarked on a path of no return and there are no laws to stop him. Nor a brake to stop him; he cannot turn back. Marchena, the unanimity in the 1-0 ruling and the daydreams have served for this. Proclaiming the independence of Catalonia in Parliament is rebellion. Even if it lasted 8 seconds. 

If it goes well, the daredevils will become heroes. That is why, with Artur Balder, we encourage the president to strike the definitive blow: "finish with recklessness what you have begun with recklessness".

Antonio Regalado manages BAHÍA DE ÍTACA