'Let them go!' Trump demands all J6 'patriots' be released immediately
March 17, 2023
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The Spanish government is under fire over allegations police officers infiltrated far-left and green groups and had sex with activists to win their trust and gain information.
The scandal broke when Catalan media La Directa reported in January that a police officer going by the name of Daniel Hernandez had sexual relations with various members of a Barcelona squat and far-left movements since 2020.
The intimate relations in one case lasted nearly a year, according to the alternative publication based in the Catalan capital.
Six women have filed a complaint against the officer, accusing him of sexual abuse. They argue their sexual consent was obtained on the basis of lies.
One of the women's lawyers, Mireia Salazar, told AFP the goal of the complaint was "to know how far these practices go, which in our opinion, have no legal justification."
The scandal deepened after the Madrid branch of climate activist group Extinction Rebellion said last week it had been infiltrated by a female police officer who "had sexual relations with at least one of its members".
The affair recalls the case in Britain of Kate Wilson, an environmental activist who was tricked into a sexual relationship with an undercover officer for nearly two years.
In a landmark ruling in 2021, a tribunal concluded that the police had violated her human rights.
'Moral limit?'
In Spain the Hernandez case has sparked outrage, especially in the northeastern region of Catalonia which sparked the country's worst political crisis in decades in 2017 with a failed independence push.
It comes after Spain's central government admitted last year that it spied on the mobile phones of 18 Catalan separatist leaders using Israeli spyware Pegasus.
"Where is your moral limit, where is your ethical limit?" Gabriel Rufian, a top lawmaker with Catalan separatist party ERC, asked Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez last month during a debate in the assembly.
"It is not just a threat to political freedoms, ideological freedoms, but also -- it seems -- sexual freedoms", he added in a reference to the case of the undercover Barcelona police officer.
Sanchez's minority leftist coalition government regularly relies on the ERC to pass legislation in parliament.
Criticism has also come from far-left party Podemos, the junior coalition partners of Sanchez's Socialists.
"It is violence against women," secretary of state of equality, Angela Rodriguez of Podemos, told Catalan radio station Rac1.
"And I think that the sooner that we know what happened and justice can be done, the better it will be for the reputation of security agencies," she added.
'It was a shock'
The scandal comes as Sanchez's government grapples with waning support ahead of regional elections in May and a year-end general election.
Contacted by AFP, both the interior ministry and the police declined to comment on the allegations.
But during a recent debate in parliament, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska dismissed the ERC's accusations of "illegal activities" by police as "a lie".
Undercover police also reportedly infiltrated a far-left group in the Mediterranean port of Valencia, and a Barcelona housing rights group called "Resistim al Gotic", although in these cases there are no allegations of improper sexual relations.
According to La Directa, a police officer calling himself Marc Hernandez pretended to be a "Resistim al Gotic" activist for nearly two years before the publication unmasked him in June.
"When the information was revealed, it was a shock," Marti Cuso, a member of the group, told AFP.
"We did not suspect anything, we had no clues that his person could be a police officer," he added.
© 2023 AFP
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President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, an expansion of government-subsidized health insurance that he said had "changed America" but is under threat from his Republican opponents.
Foreshadowing a major theme of what is expected to be his bid for a second term in 2024, Biden said he was working to lower costs in the notoriously expensive US healthcare system while fending off Republican pressure to cut government funding.
"Even now, MAGA Republicans in Congress are intent on repealing the Affordable Care Act," Biden told a White House celebration event, referring to the hard right wing of the Republicans led by former president and candidate for 2024 Donald Trump.
"It's clear it would have a devastating impact on the American people."
Republicans have repeatedly sought and failed to repeal the law popularly known as Obamacare since it was passed by the narrowest of majorities in 2010, when Biden was vice president under Barack Obama.
"We made history," Biden said.
"We changed America. We gave millions of people peace of mind. We did something else: we also took a giant step toward realizing the fundamental principle that we hold as Democrats and as Americans -- that healthcare is a right, not a privilege," he said.
"We're not all the way there yet, but there's more to do. So let's finish the job," he added, reprising a phrase now sprinkled through his speeches amid speculation that he will soon announce his 2024 campaign.
Biden tore into Republicans, saying the Trump wing had taken over and this is not "your father's Republican Party."
He noted the lack of Republican support for his recent expansion of healthcare subsidies through the Inflation Reduction Act and moves to use the purchasing power of state-run programs like Medicaid to push pharmaceutical giants into negotiating lower prices for medicines.
"For decades... we tried to take on Big Pharma, but we finally won," he said to cheers from the crowd of Democratic lawmakers and other supporters.
Biden's attack comes as Republicans are debating on a proposed national budget. Biden has already laid out his preferred version of the budget, which would raise taxes on rich Americans to protect funding for social spending -- something Republican leaders have said they won't support.
© Agence France-Presse
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Reacting to a report from Puck News, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough claimed the tepid response from Donald Trump donors after he sent out a fundraising appeal with his legal problems mounting should be causing panic amongst his re-election campaign staff.
Late Thursday, Puck's Tara Palmieri reported, "The $1.5 million that Donald Trump has allegedly raised off his looming indictment appears to be causing some agitation within the former president’s orbit, likely because, as insiders will agree, $1.5 million isn’t actually a huge sum compared to his past scandal-adjacent fundraising blitzes," before adding, "his best fundraising days may be behind him."
Picking up on that on Friday morning, the Morning Joe host noted that the former president appears to have "tapped out" his small-dollar donors with his constant demands for cash and that does not bode well if he gets the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.
"Puck noted last night that people around Donald Trump see this as a bad sign," the MSNBC host began. "His fundraising prowess is dried up, he's worn out all of these lists, he sent spam out for six years, seven years. the small money donations just aren't coming in."
DON'T MISS: Trump warns of 'death and destruction' if he's charged with crimes
"You know, right after 'Access Hollywood,' he raised $11.5 million off of small donors," he continued. "After the FBI raid last summer at Mar-a-Lago, as he called it, he raised $2 million in two days. now he's raised $1.5 million over the week."
"People around Trump, in Trump's orbit, are going, like, this is a really bad sign for the coming campaign," he added. "He's completely worn out the small donors. All the big donors, of course, are going to the guy in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)."
Watch the video below or at this link.
MSNBC 03 24 2023 06 00 00 youtu.be
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