Fatua of the Taliban of gender ideology against Najat el Hachmi, the Spanish writer born in Morocco to whom the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, has granted the honor of being the announcer of the fiesta mayor that the city will celebrate in September.

The minute the name of the person in charge of opening the next Mercè celebrations was known, a potpourri of associations —Migration, Refuge and LGTBI+ Diversity, Catalan Observatory against Homophobia, Unit against Fascism and Racism and the Trans State Platform— demanded Collboni's rectification to the cry of “Najat transphobic, Islamophobic and instigator of hate speech”. Later, ERC and Junts, through their sectors, also joined the festival of nonsense.

The sins of the writer for all these pseudo-intellectuals from the crotch and uncritical multiculturalism, endorsed by the follower attitude of some parties, are reduced to the fact that the columnist for El País and El Ara freely writes what she thinks in a frank style, but for nothing insulting or offensive.

What supposedly makes her a hate ambassador, in the eyes of all these clubs that require members to leave their brains at the door, is her sharply critical views of a certain type of sex education in the classroom, a well-argued skepticism about the benefits of the trans law and a combative attitude against the veil that Islam imposes on women. That and the conviction that this religion, which she knows well, will never be feminist and that it is a resounding nonsense, as well as extremely dangerous, to defend the opposite.. Oops, what you said!

That all these entities, to which the aforementioned political parties have joined with accounts of their second-order social networks, dictate a fatwa against Najat el Hachmi only demonstrates once again the mental dwarfism of those who believe that military in a collective is enough minority and historically discriminated against to be right. Also the lack of solidity of some political formations, always pending the last lament of any group, reasonable or not, to support them in their demands, acting as a sounding board for nonsense..

COMMUNICATED | Rejection of the election of the transphobic announcer at the 2023 Mercè festivities – LGTBI COORDINATOR https://t.co/Y66LHFH1wj

— Najat Driouech Ben Moussa (@najat_driouech) July 28, 2023

We are not going to fool ourselves. That the anti-democratic impulse nestles among the identity groups is not a novelty and that the parties crawl through the social networks before any minority demand, as long as it comes from a specific group, neither. We are used to that by now. What continues to surprise us, on the other hand, is the lukewarmness and the limited number of voices willing to come out to defend the merits of the writer to deserve the commission to announce the biggest festival in Barcelona with the vehemence that the seriousness of the accusations against her demands. . And above all without forgiving nuances in between.

We would like to opt for an optimistic hypothesis to explain so much silence. We could bet on laziness. The justifiable drowsiness that always provokes facing imbecility in the heat of heat. But the truth is that we bet more convincingly on cowardice. Free thought is afraid of rainbow and crescent flags. Daring to disagree with them is like stepping on windows barefoot. hence the surrender. A surrender that translated means that these groups are right because yes, whatever they say. And if not, the derision of being a fascist, a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe and a speaker of hate speech falls on you. Luckily, there are people like Najat el Hachmi to defend the most common: the right to say what you want regardless of the number of inquisitors you are going to agitate.. We will always be on Najat's side, no matter how far away we are in so many things.

On the subject, it is also worth pointing out the paradox that Najat el Hachmi wants to be banished from public conversation, both by staunch defenders of gender self-determination and by those who see Islam as a religion that must be respected. regardless of their perspective on women and sexuality (we don't even talk about gender anymore!).

Strange alliances against independent judgment. Although it is easy to understand the coincidence. The castrators of freedom can always understand each other, since they share the job of cutting tongues. Although in reality they can only do it when the laziness of cowards and the stupidity of political follow-up leave them free to do so. Let's hope they don't get away with it this time.. And that everything is reduced in the end to a ridiculous call for inquisitors, exposing themselves when the festivities begin in September.

The possibility of introducing a reduction of the voluminous debt that Catalonia has accumulated with the State through the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) in full debate on the governability of Spain has put the territories hardest hit by the current financing system on guard. The Catalan socialists, led by Salvador Illa, put on the table of the Ministry of Finance several months ago a proposal to carry out a restructuring of the Generalitat's liabilities with the State in order to advance the Catalan fiscal reserve, in theory in the side of the least favored territories by the current distribution of resources between the autonomies. Catalonia has 84% of its more than 85,400 million debt committed to the State through the FLA, the mechanism that Cristóbal Montoro invented in 2012 to provide financial oxygen to territories that could not find loaned money on the market due to imbalances in their balance.

The idea of compensating in some way these more than 71,000 million debt as part of the package to update the financing system has been revived in the context of a possible negotiation of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez between the PSOE and the Catalan independence parties, ERC and together. The World advanced this Sunday that could be one of the elements put on the board by the PSC. Sources from the Catalan socialists deny that a proposal in this sense has been formalized officially, although they admit that it is part of their agenda and that they plan to submit proposals in this regard to the Ministry of Finance before the end of this year..

The current minister, the socialist María Jesús Montero, has coldly welcomed the initiative. Asked about the matter this Monday in an interview in La Sexta, she described the debate as “precipitated”, which she frames within a negotiation of the reform of regional financing that seems increasingly difficult to address with the current composition of majorities in the Congress. Even so, Montero admitted that there is an “asymmetrical situation in different communities” in relation to the debt with the FLA, that is to say, that the liabilities with the Spanish Treasury of the territories with more financing problems are much greater than those that have more financial independence. “It is a commitment of this government and to do it in the shortest possible time,” said Montero about the reform of the system. “There are many derivatives within the system, which not only Catalonia, but other communities have also put on the table and, obviously, the Government has to address all the components of this puzzle,” he defended..

The minister was referring to the repeated requests for cancellation or restructuring of the debt with the FLA that have made the most punished autonomies. The Region of Murcia, with 84% of its 11,506 million euros of debt committed to the FLA, and the Valencian Community, with 46,274 million of debt with the State, 83% of its 55,439 million of accumulated debt, are, with Catalonia, the most dependent territories of the Treasury. Andalusia, also at the bottom in financing, has 68% of its liabilities with the FLA, 25,276 million. The three regions have a president of the Popular Party. The Valencian Generalitat has just replaced the socialist Ximo Puig by the conservative Carlos Mazón.

That the forgiveness of the debt with the FLA enters into the equation of a negotiation with the pro-independence parties (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya is the most willing to put the fiscal dialogue on the table) commits these barons of the PP, because they can hardly refuse to the extension of a removal whose territories they have been claiming for years, always with the resistance of the Ministry of Finance.

This same Monday, to questions from El Confidencial, sources from the Valencian Ministry of Finance pointed out that, if a debt cancellation is being considered, “there is no doubt that the Valencian Community should receive the same treatment”.. “From our point of view, it is not something that should be dealt with bilaterally, but within the framework of the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, with all the territories,” they stated from the department now directed by the independent Ruth Merino.

“Any reform of the financing system, as well as the restructuring of the debt caused by under-financing, must be led by the State, in coordination with the autonomous communities and within the framework of the institutions, and not be the subject of private negotiations with the secessionism”, added sources from the Ministry of Finance of the Region of Murcia, who recalled that the Murcian president, Fernando López Miras, has raised on several occasions the need to address the accumulated debt.

The Valencian councilor herself advocated last Friday, before the debate opened this week, for studying ways to cushion the weight of the Generalitat's debt accumulated with the State as a result of underfinancing. “I don't know if the absolute cancellation or a restructuring, there are many options,” said Merino..

The truth is that, even within the framework of an investiture negotiation, both the López Miras government and the new PP Council and Vox find it difficult to oppose the FLA debt reductions if they are extended to the most punished autonomies by the system. The claim for the forgiveness of liabilities, within a negotiation to reform the financing system, has been on the argument of the Valencian and Murcian political forces for years. The commission of experts of the Valencian Courts already raised it in the report dated December 2017. In that commission was Eusebio Monzó, current regional secretary of Finance appointed by the PP. Monzó is now the number two and strong man of the ministry with Merino.

In that document, which bears the signature of Monzó together with that of Francisco Pérez, Rafael Beneyto, José Antonio Pérez and José Ismael Fernández Guerrero, it is written: “There is not an excess of spending, but an insufficiency of income, a very relevant circumstance for assess the moral hazard of forgiveness”. And he added: “Some communities financially discriminated against in the past will drag the effects of the injustice suffered if their debts are not pooled”. As a third argument, he proposed: “It is unrealistic to think that, without any type of debt reduction, the most indebted communities can return to the market in the medium term, taking into account how the financial industry works”. A similar proposal for “reorganization” of the regional debt is the one put forward by the PSC through Professor Antoni Zabalza.

Sources from the Valencian socialists, who until the inauguration of Mazón held the Treasury portfolio at the Botanical Council, recalled that the Executive of Ximo Puig has on several occasions claimed debt relief with little success before the Ministry of Treasury. The experts appointed by the Valencian Parliament maintain that around 70% of the Generalitat's liabilities, the highest in Spain in relation to GDP, is a consequence of insufficient economic resources derived from the financing systems of 2002 and 2009, the latter expired since 2014. “In the PSPV, we have always been committed to both, with the financing reform and with a solution for the debt. It is good for the autonomous communities and for the welfare state,” they point out..

A 58-year-old man is seriously injured when he was run over this Monday afternoon in the Madrid municipality of Móstoles. As reported to EFE by sources from the 112 Community of Madrid, around 8:30 p.m. they have received several calls warning of this event, which took place on Iker Casillas street, at number 12.

The man was unconscious and a mobile UVI from SUMMA112 has traveled to the place, in addition to the Local Police, the same sources have detailed.

The man suffered a severe head injury and, once he had been stabilized, he was transferred by SUMMA112 troops to the 12 de Octubre University Hospital.

• They rob the Louis Vuitton store on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona stamping a car
• A driver flees from the police in a chase and ends up in the least expected place

This afternoon, an accident in Barcelona between a car and a truck has left dozens of pigs in the middle of the road in Catalonia. For several hours the AP-7 has been closed between Barberà and Santa Perpètua in both directions, which has caused more than 10 kilometers of delays from Sant Cugat.

The crash involved a car and a truck carrying pigs. The accident has left four injured and the pigs to get out of the truck, forcing the traffic to be cut off, which continues with traffic jams. In the images that they have shared from the Mossos d'Esquadra account, you can see how the animals occupy the entire highway.

We work with the rest of the emergency services in this accident

As the pigs are moving on the road we are coordinating with @agentsruralscat, @bomberscat and @policiaSPM to restore traffic as soon as possible https://t.co/Y23i2DUFIY pic.twitter.com/gmzFBEu7jO

— Mossos (@mossos) July 31, 2023

The truck overturned and the cab of the truck caught fire. After the arrival of the emergency bodies, the fire has been extinguished. The recommendations are to travel through the alternative routes C-16/C-25 (direction France) and B-23 (Metropolitan Area).

The Generalitat de Catalunya has reported that all the live animals have already been transferred and the dead ones are just being collected. Work continues to remove the truck that was transporting pigs with a crane and the road remains closed to the north. The southern direction of the AP-7 is already open and there are now roadblocks in a 12-kilometre stretch.

We have activated 8 land resources and a #bomberscat helicopter for the accident on the AP-7 in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda where a tourist and a truck loaded with pigs have collided, which has overturned and its cabin has caught fire.
At this moment, the fire is already extinguished. https://t.co/qTZ04DN5LW pic.twitter.com/VfHjnFJQ6X

— Firefighters (@bomberscat) July 31, 2023

ℹ In the AP-7 accident, all the live animals have already been moved and the dead are just being collected

The gondola has arrived to remove the damaged truck.

Red Cross, with the support of @mossos, is handing out bottles of water to the vehicles in detention pic.twitter.com/a3JzOCwW9V

— Transit (@transit) July 31, 2023

The latest information indicates that the detentions continue, so the Red Cross, with the support of the Mossos, is handing out bottles of water to the vehicles that are on the highway.

• A girl calls 112 because she thinks she has found a body on the road and the true story explodes on Twitter
• Rehearsing my death with my daughter: the strange moment in which you explain to the children how to call 112

Spain is immersed in the operation out of summer and the August exodus begins. In total, the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) estimates more than nine million road trips and a figure of more than 50 million for the entire month with more movements in summer. During these dates, the long-distance trips will be joined by the beginning of the vacation month of August, with those returning from those who finish their vacations in the month of July and the usual weekend departures of the summer period..

To ensure all transits, verify the correct behavior of drivers and provide the greatest possible coverage, the Traffic Group has the maximum disposition of its agents, several vehicles from the air and camouflaged and other devices such as radars. In addition to the personnel of the emergency services in those cases that require.

Traffic forecasts prepared by Tráfico contemplate that the greatest increase in vehicles took place last Friday, July 28, in the afternoon, mainly between 4:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.. This Monday the 31st the usual movements in and out of the big cities on a working day coincided with movements for the beginning of the holiday month of August. From the Twitter account of the emergency services of Andalusia they wanted to share a series of recommendations to travel safely and prevent traffic accidents during the holidays.

Tips from 112

First of all, you must make sure that your vehicle is in optimal conditions to undertake the trip. It is necessary to check that the lights, wheels, brakes and restraint systems work correctly. The route must be planned before setting off and it is convenient to avoid the days of massive displacements, the most unfavorable hours and find out about the state of the road.

🚗 Are you one of the lucky ones who start their vacation this week? Going on a road trip these days? Sounds like a fantastic plan to us, but remember we want you back safe and sound. Here we leave you some practical #Tips112 to avoid traffic accidents📹 pic.twitter.com/G2sQTHCXeT

– Emergencies 112 (@E112Andalucia) July 31, 2023

During the journey, luggage, travelers and pets must be accommodated and correctly placed inside the vehicle. Once on the move, make sure you are rested and stop if you feel fatigued, usually every two hours.. Distractions must be avoided and the mobile phone must not be used until the parking lot or arrival at the destination. You must also follow the indications of the signs or agents in front of the navigator, pay attention to the information on the panels and speed limiters.

The device can be consulted on the DGT website. You can follow the traffic situation in real time and any incidents that may exist on the Twitter accounts @informacionDGT and @DGTes, although in the event of an accident you should call the emergency number 112. As usual, with the aim of favoring circulation in the most conflictive areas, reversible and additional lanes with cones will be installed in the hours of greatest traffic flow and alternative itineraries will be established..

José Manuel Villarejo appeared again this Monday before the National Court. After his sentence to 19 years in prison in the first trial of the macro-cause, the accusations wanted his return to prison to be agreed, but the request ended up turning against the Prosecutor's Office: “It is not precise in the least,” criticized the magistrates in response to his warning about the alleged flight risk. “Not every purpose justifies the deprivation of liberty of the accused or defendant”. The resolution represents a setback for the Prosecutor's Office, and even more so when the sentence itself was already far from the objectives that were set in its indictment.

Villarejo has been free for more than two years and, according to the National Court, other “circumstances” must be taken into account that the Prosecutor's Office has ignored when requesting his return to prison: he has responded to “all the appeals emanating from this court”, he has appeared at all “the sessions of the oral trial” in which he has been required and, as soon as this first sentence was notified to the parties, he has appeared “without delay at the Secretary of this Court despite the fact that it was perfect aware of the mistake”. For the magistrates, there is no doubt that these “concurrent particularities (…) play in favor” of Villarejo and force them to reject the request of the Prosecutor's Office.

According to the magistrates, neither Villarejo has been convicted of committing “an extremely serious crime” nor has the Prosecutor's Office clarified “what are those circumstances” that force him to be imprisoned again. The resolution points out that the “effective compliance” of the sentence would not even be 19 years, but 12: the law sets the maximum at triple the highest sentence that has been imposed and in this specific case they are four years for the crime of revealing secrets. Regarding the alleged flight risk, the accusations have provided information that “apparently” appears in other lines of investigation and that “cannot be taken into consideration here”.

This decision is still appealable within three days, but for the moment it leaves the commissioner with the same measures that were imposed on him in 2021: appearing in court every fifteen days, prohibition to leave Spain and withdrawal of his passport: ” Proportionality requires not only that the measure be adequate to fulfill a constitutionally legitimate purpose, but also that the sacrifice imposed on the freedom of the person be reasonable in comparison with the importance of the purpose of the measure.”.

A headache for the Prosecutor's Office

Beyond this last resolution, the first conviction of Villarejo will have consequences in the dozens of pieces that the macro-cause accumulates. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor is aware that the sentence is key and, already at the start of the trial in 2021, it chose to close agreements with a dozen of the defendants to try to shield their indictment: in exchange for acknowledging the facts, it lowered their request for a sentence of less than two years in prison so that they would not go to prison and, at the same time, managed to reinforce his version in order to corner the rest. However, this strategy did not work with the considered hard core of the commissioner.

The first sign that the accusation was being diluted came in the final stretch of the trial, when the Prosecutor's Office lowered the requests for conviction of the main protagonists of the case.. Among them, Villarejo himself, who went from facing 83 and a half months in jail compared to the initial 109 and 10 months. This change also benefited the commissioner's wife, Gemma Alcalá, her son, José Manuel Villarejo Gil, the lawyer David Macías and the ex-policemen Antonio Bonilla and Constancio Riaño. Except for Villarejo, who has finally been sentenced to 19 years in prison, the National Court has acquitted all the others: of the 26 defendants, only 10 have ended up being sentenced.

As El Confidencial reported last week, to this is added that the first sentence rules out the commission of bribery, which is the key crime for the rest of the macro-cause. “The activity carried out by the commissioner was in no way intended to undermine the legitimacy and criteria of action of the Public Administration, but to obtain greater private benefits, offering a series of services that are difficult to achieve, at least through legal channels,” concludes the court.

By dismissing the crime of bribery, the court throws the rest of the case on its head. Everything indicates that the Prosecutor's Office will now appeal this sentence, but in just nine days, the Villarejo case has taken a 180 degree turn. As the magistrates warn in their resolution on Monday, “the conviction (…) only constitutes a temporary confirmation of the evidence of guilt” and, until further notice, they are not even sufficient to agree to re-entry Villarejo to prison.

The new substitute president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte, renewed this week the members of its different commissions. The maneuver raised blisters and five of the 16 members of the organ joined forces to send a message: from now on, the most important decisions adopted by the CGPJ may be null and void. Guilarte's mandate starts with a fight, and the electoral results predict that the fight will be long. Its members are the only ones with exclusive dedication and receive an annual salary that exceeds 125,000 euros.. Upon assuming the presidency, Guilarte has decided to replace four of its seven members: the conservatives Juan Manuel Fernández, Juan Martínez Moya and Nuria Abad, as well as the one closest to the PSOE, Álvaro Cuesta.

Together with the progressive Clara Martínez de Careaga, the response of those relieved came in the form of a private vote. Throughout six pages, they criticize that they had been summoned for the “examination of the situation of the General Council of the Judiciary”, but Guilarte, of a conservative nature, appeared with a reorganization proposal “in hand”.. According to the complaint, they were not even previously consulted about their “opinion or preferences”, which made “due collegiality, which is the essence of this constitutional body, inoperative.”.

The members also maintain that the transfer of members from the Disciplinary Commission to the Permanent one is “manifestly contrary to law”, to the point that it can affect the validity of “all agreements adopted in the future”.. “During the plenary session, there were members who, not having legal limitations to participate in other commissions, expressed their wish to be assigned to another of the commissions other than the one to which they had been assigned, without this matter being submitted to any debate, omitting all dialogue and imposing the proposal”. The plenary of the CGPJ will not meet again until next September, but Guilarte's first decision has already caused a schism. Faced with the usual division by blocks, the new president also finds himself with both progressives and conservatives among his detractors.

23-J and the notices from Brussels

Guilarte assumed the post on July 20.. Most of the polls then pointed to a comfortable victory for Alberto Núñez Feijóo and from the PP they promised to reform the election system of the CGPJ. This hypothetical political scenario opened the door to unblocking the body after almost five years in office, but the final results show a very different image: neither the PP can carry out its reform nor will the renewal of the CGPJ be possible without the two big parties reaching an agreement.

The appointment of the 20 members of the CGPJ will continue to require a majority of three fifths of Congress and the Senate until further notice. If Pedro Sánchez achieves sufficient support for a new investiture, Feijóo would once again have the key to unlock the CGPJ, but during all these years of legislature he has not taken that step. If, on the contrary, there is an electoral repetition, it would be necessary to wait at least until December.

The blockade of the CGPJ is extended again and the red lines marked by Brussels have been overcome a long time ago. The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, has made it clear in his recent visits to Spain that they have pressure tools such as blocking funds, opening infringement proceedings and even going to the Court of Justice of the EU.

“We recommend proceeding with the renewal of the CGPJ. It is a priority,” he warned last May during an event organized by the World Association of Jurists in Madrid. “It will be positive to implement the recommendations before the start of the Spanish EU presidency in July”. Once again, Spain has already exceeded the deadline set by Brussels, and nothing indicates that the renewal of the CGPJ will take place in the short or medium term.

It is necessary to comb a few gray hairs to remember that cover of El Mundo in 2005 in which, in full offensive by a part of the PP and the most reactionary sectors of the Spanish Episcopal Conference against the gay marriage law of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Valencian popular regional deputy came out of the closet in public, recognized his homosexuality and asked his party to open an internal reflection on his political position. Felipe del Baño had acted as an adviser in the Presidency of the Generalitat with Eduardo Zaplana until, in 2003, he was included in the list of the Valencian Parliament, coinciding with the departure of his mentor as Minister of the Government of José María Aznar and the passing of witness to Francisco Camps.

For those who began in politics at the hands of the politician based in Benidorm, today awaiting trial in the Erial case, the succession of Camps was especially traumatic.. Sidelined, separated and marginalized in punishment for their Zaplanista fidelity, a good handful, those who decided not to change sides to preserve the public payroll, were victims of the bloody internal battle for power in the Valencian PP waged by the two former presidents and in the one that Camps imposed his law until the Gürtel case took him ahead.

That was the case of Felipe del Baño. Many of them have just returned to the front line, rescued by the new head of the Generalitat, the popular Carlos Mazón. New Age Zaplanism is now called Mazonism. The popular baron also began in politics at the hands of Zaplana, as general director of the Valencian Youth Institute. She came recommended by her true mentor, the deputy in Congress Macarena Montesinos, close to the former Telefónica executive at the guest level of the Mediterranean cruises investigated in Erial.

Separated as Del Baño, Mazón ended up in 2007 as a councilor in Catral, the small town in the south of Alicante, and in 2009 he assumed the management of an almost bankrupt Chamber of Commerce of Alicante, which had to refloat burning wheel town by town in search of income with his inseparable Santiago Lumbreras as chief of staff, today one of the strong men in the Presidency, recently appointed regional secretary for Institutional Relations.

Almost all of them have a liberal disposition and ideology, much less conservative and more pragmatic than the campist Christian democracy, although subscribed to hypercontrol, some of those Zaplanistas from the first hour, now Mazonistas, carry on their return to public life the bonus of better status of the one they left. Del Baño was appointed commissioner for the Fight against Violence against Women last Friday after a journey through the desert that, with Camps in power and in the eight years of Botànic, led him to occupy a position as councilor in his town, San Antonio de Benagéber, and practicing as a lawyer specializing in animal defense and collaborating in the office of Asunción Quinzá, defense attorney for Zaplana's exporter, Alicia de Miguel, in the case that judges Camps in the National Court.

Quinzá has also returned to the regional Administration as regional secretary for Equality. Her position is part of the structure of the Second Vice Presidency and Equality Department of Susana Camarero, the strong woman of the new Council, who also started in politics and was promoted as a parliamentarian by Eduardo Zaplana.

But if there is an appointment that represents better than any other, the great zaplanista revenge is that of the Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez. It was difficult for him to convince him, since he comes from overcoming cancer. Until now responsible for Medical Clinical Management at Hospital La Fe in Valencia, Gómez is probably one of the people who best knows the department for which he has been appointed head of. In the purest campsista style, far from dismissing him face to face, they emptied his powers until Marciano Gómez himself submitted his resignation in October 2004 fed up with contempt. Now he returns as number one.

It is true that Mazón has not made his electoral success an instrument of internal revenge. On the contrary. The best proof of this is the promotion of José Vicente Anaya. The mayor of Ayora was sparring with the new president in his party's primaries for the regional presidency in a candidacy with hardly any options in which the whole world saw the hand of Francisco Camps. Anaya has been appointed General Director of Management of the Socio-Health System. No rematches or punishments. As Zaplana himself once said when he took over the Generalitat in 1995: calm down, there will be something for everyone.