‘Cuponazo‘ for the separation

1. With his batteries recharged 
2. Without principles, without limits 
3. Venezuela's pain 
4. The Ferraz Concert 
5. Spain is all of us 
6. Plurinational lies 
7. In the arms of the mature woman 
8. The autumn rains 

The political course begins. This is the philosophy of citizen Pedro. This is our man. A totally new man.  He has no Legislative and Judicial powers to spare. The ‘decretazo’ is and will be his watchword. He is enough for himself. Authoritarianism with a hyaluronic smile. The most urgent and dangerous thing is to wait. 

Six long years later, it is still worth asking: from which part of the Galaxy, Doctor Sánchez, have you fallen to end up in La Moncloa and punish us so harshly and mercilessly? Why do you mistreat us like slaves while you pick our pockets as if we were travelling in Lamborghinis? Why do you use us as if we were sheep of your federal flock, apesebrados in Ferraz 80? Do you think we are idiots? He believes it. And he practices it. 

With his batteries recharged 

After his summer holidays without discounting ‘the five days of reflection’ to remain in power, the president has returned full of energy from his hidden stay -perhaps in Doñana-, from his royal wanderings in La Mareta (Lanzarote) -with Illa and ZP as VIP guests, without visiting a camp of ‘menas’- and, by private jet, to Andorra. 

More tourism in Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to say that we need 250,000 new immigrants, that immigration is a necessity and must be regulated. Stick and carrot without taking any action. Another call effect. In those 48 hours of ‘African conquest’, 1,200 people arrived on our shores. 

Forty-eight hours of contradictions, unbecoming of a responsible head of government. Sánchez was bossy to the core. 

He promised money from the EU - some 500 million - although there are no agreements with these three Atlantic countries, and we learned afterwards that FRONTEX has not received any request from the Interior to stop the arrival of cayucos and immigrants to the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and the rest of Europe. 

The competences of borders, ports and airports in immigration matters still belong to the central government but it never had a plan. Nor a proposal. It is the fault of the PP Autonomous Communities that are unsupportive and inhumane. And Vox, of course. It has returned with full batteries... of contempt for all and sundry. 

Without principles, without limits 

Institutional declaration in his house-palace that we all pay him to show off his tan with grape rays and facial massages to camouflage the passing of the years -without questions to the press- to declare nothing. Nothing at all. 

Well, to underline that his government ‘is clean as a whistle’ when he has legalised the corruption of the ERE in Andalusia (TC), the Amnesty Law, the embezzlement, the pardon of the coup plotters and has not clarified anything about the irregularities of his wife's professorship at the UCM, nor about his brother's shirking of his exclusive job at the Badajoz Provincial Council nor about his financial and musical engineering in order to be listed in Portugal. 

We are still dragging on about Tito Berni, Koldo, the payments claimed from Ábalos for being accompanied by Miss Jéssica (39. 000 euros) in 40 domestic and international trips without forgetting the debt of the PSOE of Burguillo (Seville) sold to a ‘vulture fund’ that claims 30 million euros from the City Council; we drag the suitcases of Delcy, the Maseratis of Aldama -the friend of Begoña and Globalia-, and the most serious: the lack of transparency in the Generations Funds, the manna from Brussels of which we already know the essentials: a chip company with no turnover has been given 115 million and the first thing it has done is to hire the companion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the little ‘Cánovas’, who already placed her as an advisor in Hispasat after her time at the Chinese company Huawei, a privileged competitor in the global battle for 5G. 

To make the power of the Sanchista empire more visible, harassment and demolition of Judge Peinado for having dared to take his statement - he refused to do so - in his official office as the husband of his wife. All very familiar and clean. 

Hours before imposing his minister Escrivá as governor of the Bank of Spain, we learned that ‘the independent governor’ - all independent governors depend on someone - has not fulfilled his duties to the Treasury for years. He has not declared two ‘casoplones’ and a flat in Benasque (Huesca) valued at more than 2.5 million euros. They belonged to an instrumental company of the governor in order to deduct VAT, electricity, gas and telephone bills. Exemplary citizen. Sánchez protects him. As a placement agency he is the new Lorenzo de Medici of the 21st century. 

The former Socialist Minister of Culture, César Antonio Molina, portrayed him thus in 20 words: ‘This government is made up of an autocrat in need of a psychiatrist along with communists, racists, terrorists, pro-Putin, pro-Maduro, prevaricators, seditious and embezzlers’. He ended with the question: ‘Do we deserve this?’ I think so. 

The common denominator of the whole government is brazenness and lies. Sánchez lies and deceives everyone all the time. Until when? He is a cowboy with no end horizon. 

Without principles, without limits. On the threshold of tyranny. But Pedro Sánchez continues to say that he is ‘an honest and persecuted man’. He has yet to meet the fugitive Puigdemont. The photo can wait. 

Venezuela's pain 

As I write this Bay, the president is in China to try to even out the balance of payments between Spain and the People's Republic of Venezuela. 7.5 billion euros in exports compared to 45 billion euros in imports. 

Sánchez wants to be the bridge between Beijing and Brussels once the tariff war has begun after the failure of electric cars throughout the West. But the real mentor of the trip is Rodríguez Zapatero, the new horseless consul, the new intermediary in word, deed and commission of Xi Jinping's regime. 

Before leaving, Escrivá has allocated 1.5 million euros to the Chinese foundation presided over by JLRZ, with a report against the technicians of the Ministry of Digital Transition because this institution has no relevance in Spanish society. Another link in the chain of corruption. 

Things are happening so fast that the Ministry of Defence has already brought the winner of the general elections of 28 July, Edmundo González, into exile from Caracas. He is citing humanitarian reasons. 

The government has never declared that he is the elected president. Our great leader has limited himself to saying: ‘He is a hero. We will protect him’. May the gods help them! It was the same thing he said to Juan Guaidó and then was unable to receive him at La Moncloa. 

Tomorrow J.L. Zapatero will appear to say that he is safe and sound in the capital of the Kingdom because he has been the mediator with the tyrant. Another whitewashed criminal. José Manuel Albares has lied cowardly and unnecessarily: ‘We have not negotiated anything with Maduro’. 

The all-powerful Delcy, now owner of PDVSA, made this clear as the election winner went into exile for the first time and cushioned his pain in Madrid: ‘There have been deep negotiations between the two governments and it is good that he is leaving for the social peace of Venezuela’. 

The support of former presidents González, Aznar and Rajoy for Edmundo and María Corina Machado was praiseworthy. The Venezuelan tyrant threatened them with death as he did the 1,700 imprisoned and the six dissidents who have taken refuge in the Argentine embassy in Caracas. 

The Caribbean dictator has denied Lula custody of the interests of Buenos Aires and the assault on the diplomatic headquarters by Cuban hitmen and the revolutionary guard has already begun. 

Sánchez is silent while half of his government - those of Sumar and Podemos have already proclaimed Maduro president for life - and the tortures of a narco-executive that aspires to ‘conquer’ more than ten million exiles continue. Communist terror with Cuban DNA and accent. 

Black prisons without witnesses. There are more than 100 disappeared, mostly young people, persecuted by a narco-state that does not respect human rights. What is the Socialist International, presided over by the economist and head of government, good for? When will the ICC begin to rule against the dictator after the accusations of the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe? 

E.G.'s status as a political refugee will limit the actions of the president-elect; the shock of his voters is only comparable to the courage of María Corina Machado who understands the personal decision of the candidate diplomat because life is everything. 

She will remain in hiding. Vence Venezuela (VV), her party, must resist until Borrell, who not even two months before his generous community retirement, has the courage to proclaim Edmundo González president-elect. Brave with Netanyahu, cowardly with Maduro Moro. 

The scant reactions from the White House, the European Union, the OAS and neighbours (Lula, AMLO, Petro) augur the worst: that they have all protected the czar Nicolás Maduro so that he can run alone for a fourth re-election on 10 January. The president will once again send King Felipe VI alone to Caracas to legitimise the electoral mega-fraud. 

Let us hope that the European Parliament will recognise González Urrutia as president-elect by the end of the month. Here, the Congress will say yes or no. It depends on the Christian Democrats of the PNV. The PSOE will vote NO. 

The PP is right to denounce that Sánchez has ‘taken away problems from the Bolivarian dictatorship’. 

My admired Maite Rico explained it in EL MUNDO with the precision of a neurosurgeon: ‘Maduro gets rid of the opponents, the opponents get rid of prison, ZP will be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize -this evil is mine- and the dictatorship is strengthened’. 

At the same time, Spain has doubled its purchases of gas and oil from Russia and Venezuela. Money stained with blood, pain and tears to defend narco-democracy. Cynicism of Sánchez and Albares. The electoral mega-fraud is being consummated because time is running in favour of the regime. A masterstroke to bury the result of 28 July. Where are the results? 

Edmundo González has written a letter to his fellow citizens justifying his decision ‘until things change’. Believing in dialogue and hope with Maduro, also with Sánchez, is always dangerous. 

The Ferraz Concert 

The PSOE's Federal Committee was convened to explain to the party's leading figures the virtues of the unique financial Pact, Agreement, Concert, coupon or ‘cuponazo’ signed with ERC so that Salvador Illa could be enthroned as president of the Generalitat. Now ERC is self-destructing in order to survive. 

More instability for the self-government and, therefore, for Sánchez. And for Spain. 

In his speech, the secretary general did not advance a single line of this fabulous agreement that hands over the public treasury to Catalonia and breaks solidarity and equality among Spaniards. 

On the pavement outside the Socialist headquarters, Aragon's Javier Lambán confessed that he had read the text in Catalan and that it is against everyone and everything, except the procés. Emiliano García Page could not have been clearer: ‘This is not a socialist concert, but a selfish one’. 

Then he demanded the basic: that I be given a text of the agreement; ‘I know how to read and I want to know all the points of the text’. Five days later, no one has given him a copy. And his words are still awaiting a response: ‘This is a couponazo for independence’. From Toledo he insisted: ‘This is not about parties, it is about citizens’. Often the struggle is more ennobling than the victory, as we learned from Homer. 

Sánchez took revenge on the critics. Nothing was debated in the Sanchez conclave. And he seeks to purge all of them at the 41st Congress where the secretary general will ‘line up’ the attendees in November to act as one man. 

They are all Sánchez. Align means for the new PSOE, laminate, alienate. Absolute submission to the supreme leader of the new Central Committee. He knows what he has to do and he will do it. 

The singular financing of Catalonia is together with the amnesty (eleven appeals of Unconstitutional, none from the Ombudsman) the biggest attack against the Constitution of 78. It is about dynamiting the Transition. Light and stenographers. 

The vice-president M. J. Montero, the enemy of the Agreement and two days later an enthusiastic supporter of it and a convert to fulfil the commitments with ERC and Junts, already advanced it in the Upper House. ‘The Agreement says what it says and does not say what it does not say; everything is very clear’. Nor did she hand over a text to their Lordships. 

The agreements to keep Sánchez in Moncloa - with or without Budget/25 - are secretly signed in Waterloo and Geneva (Cerdán) and in Barcelona between the Count-Duke of Bolaños and the coup-maker Junqueras. 

Spain is all of us 

We are all the Treasury. The tax ‘cuponazo’ for Catalonia has collectively excited the PP who have acted like Fuenteovejuna. All as one. Sánchez hoped to negotiate bilaterally with the PP barons.  The staging in front of a palace of props was convincing as a ‘loyal opposition’. Once again, he made the president's premeditated mistake: ‘Press conference without questions’. 

But Ayuso, like Lope de Vega, tired of the president's direct attacks, from the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute and in defence of the people of Madrid, responded to the caudillo and demanded that no one visit the president. She demanded that the Conference of Presidents be convened to discuss among all of us what belongs to all of us. In line with García-Page. 

Before the gong sounded, the popular presidents of the Autonomous Regions, the PP itself and Castilla-La Mancha presented eleven appeals of unconstitutionality against the Amnesty Law before the Constitutional Court. 

Conde Pumpido is already manoeuvring so that, after the resignation of ex-Minister Campo, the majority of Sanchez's supporters will be 6 to 5. A prior step for the Catalan ‘cuponazo’ to pass the test of inequality among Spaniards and to reach the last obstacle: the sovereignty referendum under the cover of a supervening legitimacy that they will call federal, confederal or plurinational. 

Plurinational lies 

Sanchismo's populism is accentuated with Goebelsian lies. It is not true that the Community of Madrid privileges the rich, nor that education and healthcare are being privatised. One piece of information: the move to private centres to decongest hospital waiting lists began in Chaves' Andalusia. Madrid spends 11% of its budget on these treatments; Catalonia 23%. 

What Don Pedro wants is to give a few crumbs to the Autonomous Communities and in exchange cede tax sovereignty to Catalonia. Neither coffee for all nor calimocho. The rupture of equality and tax collection. 

The metaphor of ‘more buses and fewer Lamborghinis’ has not been a good start for the new chief of staff, Diego Rubio. He does not seem to be a luminary when the Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, has just assured the Senate that ‘Cercanías is working better than ever’. And the other ‘Óscar’, Óscar López, has gone from plumbing to Artificial Intelligence. All Hollywood. 

It seems that I had not defended Begoña Gómez enough in her university ordeal. When it became known that Mr Pérez-Castejón went to visit the King to tell him that he was ‘not leaving at all’ without telling his right-hand man, he was doomed to success elsewhere. 

The last thing we remember about López is his creative accounting at Paradores to settle the accounts. And those three unfinished reasons to vote for the PSOE that he reduced to two: pensions, work and... he drew a blank. Now he comes with martial airs to follow in the footsteps of his Castilian enemy and namesake, Puente. A dar caña, as they used to say in the days of Alfonso Guerra. 

We close this section - we always return to the starting point - of the creation of the Tax Agenda for Catalonia. In other words, to break the single tax collection box and with it solidarity. First and second class citizens. Illa has already done this by banishing the Spanish language from public life and the Spanish flag when the separatists turn up. 

Sánchez thinks that by raising taxes on the middle classes and the ‘very rich’ he will collect crumbs to please the poorer regions and he will consolidate his position at the top of power for a few more months. At the top of the world. So much contempt is no longer valid. 

The arrogance with which the president has joined the party coincides with the arrogance of a misguided leader. The direct challenge to his militants, voters and hatred of those who do not vote for him contrasts with his obedience to the nationalists, separatists and coup plotters. As President Adolfo Suárez denounced at the time, Sánchez is strong with the weak and weak with the powerful. 

This suicidal superiority has led him to colonise all institutions. All of them. There are still some good men among the judges and magistrates. Let's say I'm talking about Marchena (Madrid) and Aguirre (Barcelona). Half a dozen honest journalists and another dozen policemen. 

In the arms of the mature woman 

That said, with all due respect, your honour. I want to say that we are in good hands. The General Council of the Judiciary appointed María Isabel Perelló Doménech (Sabadell, 1958) as the new president of the Supreme Court. She is the first woman to hold the highest position in the judiciary. The solemn opening ceremony of the Judicial Year was presided over by King Felipe VI. How the Monarch has aged! 

Mrs Perelló was not La Moncloa's favourite. That is the most important thing. Her career is very professional. She believes in the ‘78 Constitution. And in the Transition. She is welcome. We need it in this web of anti-constitutionalists. 

She gave up the speech prepared by her Technical Secretariat and wrote it personally in the heat of the night to appeal to politicians: ‘Respect Justice’. Perelló vindicated in his debut the independence of the courts and placed the judiciary on a par with and with autonomy from the executive and the legislature. 

We are left with this phrase which reaffirms its legitimacy outside of political power: ‘No branch of government can give indications or instructions to judges and magistrates on how they should interpret and apply the legal system’. That is all there is to it. 

Minister Bolaños' face reflected his disappointment after the review of his Cabinet colleagues, permanent harassers of judges and magistrates. 

The short and direct speech (five pages) of the president of the Council and the Supreme Court contrasted with the 23 pages of servility of the [government] attorney general Álvaro García Ortiz, who was scandalised by the ‘private accusations’ in the proceedings against politicians and insisted that the prosecutors should be the ones to instruct the judicial processes. 

And who does the public prosecutor's office depend on? Well, that's just it. 

Sánchez, absent from the event, went to Paris to have his photograph taken with the Spanish Paralympians who have won 40 medals. He is always absent in difficult moments. Whether in key votes such as the ‘yes is yes’, the Trans Law or the Law on Foreigners. And on top of that he asks the PP to vote for him. 

The priorities of the action of a government that does not govern are clear: competitiveness, labour dignity, welfare state, housing and peace. Let there be peace in the world. This is the new Sanchista impulse. Nothingness, survival. 

The autumn rains 

Every other year and sometimes every other year. In any case, the Ebro overflows its banks every two years. The rough waters of the Pyrenees flow into the sea to be desalinated. An invention. It is in the new 20/30 agenda that this Executive does not want to modify. 90 dams have been demolished while the days of the Almaraz nuclear power station (Cáceres) are numbered now that Brussels has declared this energy clean and renewable. 

Floods have caused incalculable damage to people and property, mainly in Mallorca and on the Mediterranean coast. Not a single proposal to implement a National Hydrographic Plan (PHN) eliminated by Zapatero in 2004 after cowardly withdrawing our troops in Iraq. Water and drought are two major problems. 

The political year has begun, children have returned to school, the elderly to the Institute and the University has extended its holidays until October. Ukraine needs more help than ever to repel the Russian invasion and terror; in Gaza a truce is needed to free the hostages; and Kamala Harris has reached the most decisive hour of her career: winning the election debate against Trump and going from presiding over the Senate to leading the US government. 

We would like to believe that better times are ahead. I have borrowed Emiliano García Page's title because it faithfully reflects the political drift that is coming because the procés will never end. 

Antonio REGALADO is a journalist and runs BAHÍA DE ÍTACA at: 

aregaladorodriguez.blogspot.com