Un nuevo desastre ferroviario nos pone, una vez más, frente a la incompetencia del Gobierno socialista comunista. A eso hay que añadir que emerge otra vez la impunidad, porque es un Gobierno que nunca asume responsabilidad por sus actos y su gestión. No importa lo que suceda. Es igual que sea tan grave como este brutal accidente ferroviario o que se trate de los flagrantes incumplimientos de la Constitución, tanto en el fondo como en la forma. Nadie presenta la dimisión o es cesado. Es ciertamente asombroso que en una democracia no tengamos mecanismos para impedir que Sánchez y sus colaboradores, salvo alguna excepción, se comporten como si nada les importara. Esta falta de empatía explica las cosas que han sucedido y están sucediendo. Con absoluto descaro utilizan a los medios de comunicación al servicio de La Moncloa para vender, como es habitual, sus relatos. Con una desfachatez que no tiene parangón en ningún gobierno democrático, siempre culpan a los demás de los errores propios. La ética política debería conducir a que alguien asumiera las responsabilidades políticas y más cuando se trata de una catástrofe ferroviaria donde han muerto, hasta el momento, 68 personas. Este trágico miércoles hemos asistido sobrecogidos a un accidente sobre el que todavía no existe ninguna certeza, más allá de las interesadas filtraciones gubernamentales, sobre el origen de lo sucedido. En mi caso, siempre prefiero lo que diga la Justicia. No me fío de un Gobierno que ha convertido la mentira en algo habitual. Ni, tampoco, en comisiones cuya independencia no me veo capaz de certificar. Es posible que en este último caso me equivoque, pero sigo prefiriendo la instrucción de un juez independiente que nada tendrá que ver con los intereses de las covachuelas monclovitas. Nada espero de ese mal jurista llamado Puente, que es incapaz de dimitir tras dos catástrofes ferroviarias. Muchas veces me he preguntado qué ética o principios tiene el ministro vallisoletano. Al final, he llegado a la conclusión de que es un clon de Pedro Sánchez y, por eso, su única preocupación es hacer méritos para suceder al líder. Los escándalos, la incompetencia y la impunidad se suceden, pero los españoles saben que la responsabilidad es de la coalición que nos ha estado gobernando. Es cierto que seguirán mintiendo, pero no nos podrán seguir engañando.
Francisco Marhuenda. Académico de número de la Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación de España y de la Real Academia de Doctores de España. Académico correspondiente de la Real Academia de la Historia. Catedrático de Derecho Público e Historia de las Instituciones (UNIE).
The U.S. Marine Corps values loyalty to one’s fellow Marines and to doing the right thing even when it’s easier to do what’s wrong. It’s not a huge surprise, then, that some Marines have been saying “no” to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s demanded the expulsion of all transgender service members despite their demonstrated fitness for service. In two of three of these boards, formal hearings roughly similar to a trial, Marines have voted to retain transgender fellow Marines. And in the third case, the board expressly concluded that despite its vote, the Marine should be retained due to his “commendable service record and unique skills.”
The votes to retain are similar to jury nullification, and they send the clear message that honor restrains them from kicking out Marines who have met and continue to meet every Marine Corps standard. Thus, their vote to retain despite evidence that the Marine in question is or may be transgender.
Trump and Hegseth have already decided that any record of gender dysphoria, even if the service member never transitioned, requires a Marine or solider or sailor or airman to be stripped of the nation’s uniform
It is an Orwellian world that Marines and military members from the other services enter when ordered to sit on separation boards that Hegseth ginned up to kick out folks who refused “voluntary” separation. (It’s no less Orwellian for military lawyers made to facilitate such proceedings.) Military separation boards, in general, wield discretion to decide whether it’s in the best interest of the service to retain a fellow service member despite their alleged misconduct or diagnosed physical disability, these are boards in name only. President Donald Trump and Hegseth have already decided that any record of gender dysphoria, even if the service member never transitioned, requires a Marine or solider or sailor or airman to be stripped of the nation’s uniform. Hegseth means for these boards to do one thing: Confirm an indication, past or present, that the service member is transgender. That’s it.
They are directed to disregard the full record of the service member before them; to ignore their long history of honorable service including combat deployments; to look away from their superb performance evaluations; to not listen to their stellar character witnesses; and to pretend away the individual service member’s demonstrated excellence in an occupational specialty critical to a military at war.
Plainly put, the board members are ordered to lie and say that the service member is unfit to serve and thus play a role in depriving the U.S. military of that service member’s substantial training, experience and willingness to serve. It’s no wonder, then, that most Marine board members thus far — as well as most Navy board members — have ignored such nonsense and voted to retain. Their moral compasses demanded it.
This doesn’t mean that the Army and Air Force board members who have gone along with Hegseth’s lies don’t have moral compasses or that they enjoy being complicit with the cruel subterfuge that these boards represent. But despite whatever moral dilemma they may have between being asked to follow their values or follow orders, they have come down on the side of following orders. And they have had help. From Hegseth’s top civilian lawyer in the Pentagon to the services’ military judge advocate corps, Pentagon and military lawyers have contributed to the rationalization game that allows the Orwellian discharge boards to churn along. Legal top cover is a great way to rationalize dishonesty and justify morally bankrupt decisions that are inconsistent with one’s values.
But it’s disappointing that military lawyers have helped enable these gaslighting boards, especially since June when a Washington, D.C., federal judge agreed to make all transgender service members remaining on active duty part of a class protected by her preliminary injunction. That judge ordered Hegseth not to separate transgender service members (originally, only the named plaintiffs in Talbott v. United States) until their federal litigation challenging the transgender ban on constitutional grounds is complete.
Navy and Marine Corps boards voted for retention in nine of 12 cases, challenging an administration that treats transgender identity as grounds to end a military career.
But Judge Ana Reyes has still not issued her written ruling to that effect — she’s likely waiting to see what the Supreme Court will do with the government’s late August emergency petition challenging her preliminary injunction — and the services, surely reacting to pressure from Hegseth, have been accelerating the boards. But Reyes’ oral ruling gave and continues to give military lawyers strong legal ground to advise their commanders that holding separation boards — at least since June 30 — is contrary to a federal judge’s order. Yet the boards continue.
Hopefully more boards will follow in the footsteps of those service members who have decided to be guided by their values of integrity, loyalty, honor and respect. As social psychology studies have long shown, situational dynamics are incredibly powerful. Such dynamics have surely contributed to some boards rubber stamping the administration’s counterfactual determination that no transgender military member is worthy of continued service. There’s no reason to think that boards that refuse to rubber stamp Hegseth’s orders can’t be similarly influential.
While the unbelievably powerful dynamic of obedience to authority (recall the Milgram shock experiment) is almost impossible to interrupt, we’re seeing evidence that almost impossible isn’t the same as completely impossible, and that values and common sense can trump a service member’s order to lie and do what’s wrong.
Por segunda vez en nueve meses, España entera está sobrecogida ante las imágenes de dos trenes de alta velocidad destrozados sobre una vía en medio del campo, las pavorosas cifras de muertos y los impactantes relatos de los supervivientes de un accidente ferroviario que tendrá su propia página en la historia. Casi 400 personas viajaban en el tren AVE que, a las 8.53 de este miércoles, chocó con un tren Iryo parado en la vía Madrid-Andalucía a la altura de Urda (Toledo) con otras 146 personas a bordo. El balance de 69 muertos es aún provisional. El número de heridos supera el centenar. En estas horas críticas, es necesario transmitir a quienes han perdido a un ser querido la empatía y solidaridad de toda la sociedad española. Los testimonios de las familias y de los supervivientes serán el ancla para no olvidar en ningún momento las dimensiones de este drama humano.
Israelis on both the left and the right appear convinced that Tuesday’s election could be among their most consequential. The rest of the world seems singularly unimpressed, because the issues separating Israel from Arab countries like Saudi Arabia — with which Israel seeks normalization — or from westerners, including many younger Americans, were simply not contested.
Almost 78% of Israelis voted, the highest since 1999. The 5 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have never been able to vote or otherwise access the system that controls every aspect of their lives.
However, turnout was especially high among the 2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have been increasingly taking part in the Israeli system. Like many Jewish Israelis, they are hoping to finally dispatch Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for a record 19 years. Netanyahu on Wednesday said without evidence, “The elections in the State of Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters,” and he demanded an investigation by multiple agencies.
Given that the occupation and settlement program in the West Bank — as well as Israel’s exceptionally cruel policies in Gaza — will almost certainly remain largely unchanged, the rest of the world can be forgiven for shrugging.
The prime minister’s domestic critics blame him for Israel’s catastrophic intelligence and emergency response failure when Hamas gunmen from Gaza attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing roughly 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. They want an independent inquiry into those failures, while Netanyahu and his supporters blame military and intelligence officials.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza — the “mighty vengeance” Netanyahu vowed on Oct. 7 — has alienated much of the world. Over 75,000 people — almost all Palestinians and at least half of them civilians — have been killed. Virtually the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. As a result, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, though his Israeli critics have ignored that. Responsibility for state failures on Oct. 7 remains controversial — but the utter devastation of Gaza really isn’t. While much of the rest of the world appears profoundly horrified and alienated by the rampage, most Israelis don’t seem to care.
Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot lost a son who was fighting in Gaza, but he’s hardly promising a notably different approach. That’s also essentially true in the occupied West Bank, although Eisenkot does promise to rein in violent Jewish settlers increasingly terrorizing Palestinians.
Yet when it comes to Israel’s relentless drift toward the eventual annexation of the West Bank, without providing Palestinians in the occupied territories citizenship or voting rights, he hasn’t outlined a significantly different vision from Netanyahu. Both categorically reject Palestinian statehood, which is the only viable formula for peaceful coexistence. Yet Israel’s settlement project, and the complex apparatus of systematic ethnic repression in the West Bank it requires, isn’t especially controversial and certainly wasn’t a campaign issue.
It’s understandable that many Israelis view this election as a decisive test of their national character. Numerous crucial questions regarding the nature of their society seem at stake. Will the rule of law prevail with a continued independent judiciary, which Netanyahu has tried to dismantle? Will ultraorthodox men continue to enjoy state benefits while avoiding military service? Is Israel’s economy fundamentally healthy, or threatened by looming international sanctions because of the occupation? And, most of all, is the “Jewish character” of Israel simply a matter of broad ethnic solidarity or a narrower religious imperative that supersedes democratic traditions among Jewish Israelis?
These are certainly momentous questions, and the closely fought election is only the latest indication of how deeply divided Jewish Israelis have become as their society has shifted toward the religious and nationalist far-right.
But no matter the answers, given that the occupation and settlement program in the West Bank — as well as Israel’s exceptionally cruel policies in Gaza — will almost certainly remain largely unchanged, the rest of the world can be forgiven for shrugging.
This is just another Israeli election in which the occupation and issues regarding millions of Palestinians chafing under their highly oppressive and deadly rule haven’t arisen as significant controversies for Israeli society.
Since Oct. 7, under Netanyahu, Israel has been surrounding itself — not just in Gaza, but also Syria and Lebanon — with “buffer zones” that have been violently depopulated and, in many cases, rendered uninhabitable. Combined with the war against Iran, largely fought by the United States but loudly instigated by Netanyahu, Israelis appear to be building themselves a future of conflict, confrontation and warfare into the foreseeable future. Since 2025, Netanyahu has even been asking Israelis to regard themselves as a “super Sparta.”
Eisenkot may avoid such language, but he hasn’t sketched out policies that would allow Israel to avoid that fate. If Israel doesn’t quickly change course, it may well end up there with or without Netanyahu.
The rest of the Middle East and broader world, including many younger Americans, are already developing a distinct and reasonably dim view of the emerging Jewish “super Sparta.” Yet this vision wasn’t really on the ballot on Tuesday. It’s becoming hard to avoid concluding that this path is now a Jewish Israeli consensus.
A new book, free to download, gathers scholars, lawyers, a journalist, and the young mother cast as a “victim” who says she never met the accused. In March 2025, a young Russian woman, heavily pregnant, sat in a hospital in Bariloche, in Argentine Patagonia. She had come to Argentina, as thousands of Russian women do […]
My home government, the UK, last week somewhat belatedly joined the growing list of EU and European nations advising its citizens to stockpile essential supplies for a minimum of three days, in case of unforeseen (or initially unsolvable) crises.
In doing so, London helped bring into the mainstream what until around a decade ago had been the preserve of nutty survivalist US “preppers” (colloquial abbreviation for the conspiracy loons in woodshacks in backwoods America, preparing for the return of Jesus Christ or a ‘commie invasion’).
Instead, the topic has now become a nervously jokey staple of middle-class dinner parties.
As the conversation wanders from what horrible disaster might befall society, from freak flooding, to nuclear war, to an internet blackout or poisoned water supplies, the talk rapidly becomes one of ‘so what’s in your box’?
The UK list was a ‘success’ in that – unlike the early days of Covid – it didn’t result in mass panic buying, and empty shelves. But the mass panic is a point we’ll come back to.
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The answer would matter in any federal prosecution. It matters even more here because the case revealed Monday cannot be separated from President Donald Trump’s lengthy public campaign against Comey.
Since firing Comey as FBI director in 2017, Trump has repeatedly called him corrupt and demanded that he be prosecuted. This was no private frustration. Trump put his wishes in writing online. He pressed then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue Comey and other perceived enemies last September. “They’re all guilty as hell,” he wrote, adding that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Days later, Comey was indicted.
That first prosecution, involving Comey’s congressional testimony, was dismissed because the prosecutor who obtained the indictment had been unlawfully appointed. A second case, based on Comey’s “86 47” seashell photograph, remains pending.
The latest case dates to October 2016. Prosecutors allege that Comey directed someone to provide a reporter with national defense information about a secret court order requiring Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially connected to a foreign terrorist organization. Comey denies wrongdoing, and his lawyers say the matter was previously investigated twice without charges being brought.
On Oct. 5, exactly a decade after the alleged conduct, Justice Department lawyers filed a criminal information under seal. A “criminal information” is a formal accusation signed by a prosecutor. An indictment contains similar allegations but with one crucial addition: A grand jury has heard the government’s presentation and agreed that probable cause exists to bring the charge.
Informations are legitimate in the right circumstances. They are commonly used when defendants intend to plead guilty and formally waive their right to an indictment. Comey has not waived that right, and the Justice Department does not appear to claim that it could take him to trial on the information alone. The government’s narrower position is that filing the information kept the case alive, leaving prosecutors free to obtain an indictment later.
The ordinary five-year statute cannot save this case.
Under the ordinary federal statute of limitations, that argument is not especially strange. The general rule gives prosecutors five years to bring most federal charges. It says the government acts in time if an “indictment is found” or an “information is instituted.” Applying that language, courts have allowed prosecutors to file an information before the deadline and obtain an indictment afterward, even without a defendant’s waiver.
But the ordinary five-year statute cannot save this case.
To prosecute Comey over conduct alleged to have occurred in 2016, the Justice Department is relying on a special provision giving the government 10 years to charge certain national defense offenses.
That provision is worded differently. It says that an “indictment” has to be brought within 10 years. It does not mention an information.
That is where the Justice Department’s theory becomes difficult to defend. The law allowing prosecutors to stop the clock with an information gives them only five years. Essentially, the DOJ is trying to take the 10 years from the first law and the easier filing method from the second — but Congress never combined the two.
Congress clearly understood the difference between an indictment and an information, because both words are used in the general statute. Yet when lawmakers granted prosecutors twice as long to bring this particular category of cases, the statute used only one. If Congress intended both charging documents to have the same effect under the special provision, it wouldn’t have omitted one.
The government says filing an information to preserve a prosecution is widely recognized federal practice. Some appellate decisions permit exactly that. But those cases generally interpret the ordinary limitations statute, the one that expressly includes both charging documents. They do not settle whether prosecutors can use an information under a different provision in which Congress referred only to an indictment.
A statute of limitations is part of the law governing prosecution, not administrative clutter around the edges.
The Justice Department is likely to argue that the special law merely changes the number of years available, leaving the rest of the general limitations framework intact. Comey’s position in his motion to dismiss is that the special provision supplies its own instruction: An indictment must come within 10 years. The statute does not say that prosecutors may file whatever charging paper they have ready at the deadline and obtain the indictment later.
This may sound like legal hair-splitting, but it’s important. A statute of limitations is Congress’ judgment about how long the government should have to place someone in criminal jeopardy. It is part of the law governing prosecution, not administrative clutter around the edges.
These limits exist because evidence grows stale, witnesses disappear, and memories become less reliable. They also reflect a basic principle: The federal government, with its enormous investigative resources, eventually must decide whether it has a case. Congress gave prosecutors a generous period of 10 years for these offenses.
It’s also noteworthy that this allegation did not suddenly appear at the last minute. According to Comey’s lawyers, the disclosure was examined in 2017 and again in 2019 without a criminal case being filed. The Justice Department had years to review the evidence and, if it wished, present the matter to a grand jury.
Federal grand juries traditionally favor prosecutors: No defense is present, the government controls the evidence, and the standard is only probable cause. But that advantage depends partly on trust, and Trump’s Justice Department has squandered a lot by repeatedly pursuing people the president has publicly demanded be charged.
That makes the missing indictment here more significant. An information bypasses even this modest outside check, allowing prosecutors to file an accusation when the president has announced the outcome he wants.
The government had 10 years and missed its deadline. When a president demands a prosecution, the rules should be enforced more strictly, not less.
Europe has already learned to better recognize hybrid threats, which is definitely a good thing, but recognition alone is not enough and doesn't serve as sufficient deterrence.
European officials have grown accustomed to scenarios where a cyberattack disrupts public services and critical infrastructure, drones appear over sensitive sites,
Nine months after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, his parents are still demanding answers. His parents held a press conference yesterday. Here’s his mother, Susan Pretti: “The Federal government went on TV and lied about Alex. They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime. …We…
Nine months after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, his parents are still demanding answers. His parents held a press conference yesterday. Here’s his mother, Susan Pretti: “The Federal government went on TV and lied about Alex. They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime. …We…
As the midterm elections approach, House leadership must decide whether to reauthorize the bipartisan Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to avoid stalling progress on semiconductor export controls.
As the midterm elections approach, House leadership must decide whether to reauthorize the bipartisan Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to avoid stalling progress on semiconductor export controls.
Of all the leaders of America’s allies, from Europe to Asia, no one has invested more in seeking the favor of Donald Trump than Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae. She has met Trump three times in person during her first year in office and offered up tens of billions in investment pledges, while keeping mostly […]
Rep. Julia Letlow introduced the Know Your Risk Act to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create a universal breast cancer risk assessment tool.
Rep. Julia Letlow introduced the Know Your Risk Act to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to create a universal breast cancer risk assessment tool.
An extensive report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has confirmed that major U.S. banks engaged in widespread politicized debanking of individuals and businesses due to their religious, social, or political views.
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