politics

Nitter

Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia's last functional government in 1991, the country's 3,330 km (2,000 miles) of coastline — the longest in continental Africa — has been pillaged by foreign vessels. A United Nations report in 2006 said that, in the absence of the country's at one time serviceable coastguard, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all," with fishing fleets from around the world illegally plundering Somali stocks and freezing out the country's own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country's coastline each year. "In any context," says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum."

In the face of this, impoverished Somalis living by the sea have been forced over the years to defend their own fishing expeditions out of ports such as Eyl, Kismayo and Harardhere — all now considered to be pirate dens. Somali fishermen, whose industry was always small-scale, lacked the advanced boats and technologies of their interloping competitors, and also complained of being shot at by foreign fishermen with water cannons and firearms. "The first pirate gangs emerged in the '90s to protect against foreign trawlers," says Peter Lehr, lecturer in terrorism studies at Scotland's University of St. Andrews and editor of Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism. The names of existing pirate fleets, such as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, are testament to the pirates' initial motivations.

One Piece is a documentary about imperialists

The waters they sought to protect, says Lehr, were "an El Dorado for fishing fleets of many nations." A 2006 study published in the journal Science predicted that the current rate of commercial fishing would virtually empty the world's oceanic stocks by 2050. Yet, Somalia's seas still offer a particularly fertile patch for tuna, sardines and mackerel, and other lucrative species of seafood, including lobsters and sharks.

"degrowth is Stalinist authoritarianism that wants to make us poor"

see also: https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/africa-archives/root-causes-of-somali-piracy-nuclear-dumping-and-seafood-looting/

I saw the word for the first time literally a couple minutes ago.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Seattle Children’s Hospital filed a lawsuit in Travis County District Court on Dec. 7 against the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), after that agency requested documents related to gender transition policies and any such care provided to Texas children.

However, hospital claims that the OAG lacks jurisdiction to demand such records from the hospital, and that Washington’s “Shield Law” protects it from requests made by states that “restrict or criminalize reproductive and gender-affirming care.”

“The Shield Law prohibits Washington-based entities such as Seattle Children’s from ‘[c]omply[ing] with subpoena, warrant, court order, or other civil or criminal legal process for records, information, facilities, or assistance related to protected health care services that are lawful in the state of Washington,'” the lawsuit stated.

KXAN reached out to the OAG multiple times prior to publication; however, the agency never replied to our requests.

What does the OAG want?

According to copies of the OAG’s requests (included in the hospital’s lawsuit), the OAG sent two demands — a civil investigative demand and a notice of demand for sworn written statement.

The first demand, which has an issue date of Nov. 17, told the hospital that the OAG was investigating “misrepresentations regarding Gender Transitioning and Reassignment Treatments and Procedures and Texas law” that allegedly violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act.

That demand gave the hospital until Dec. 7 to produce documents to the OAG for the agency to identify the following:

All medications prescribed by the hospital to Texas children The number of Texas children treated by the hospital Diagnosis for every medication provided by the hospital to Texas children Texas laboratories that performed lab tests for the hospital prior to prescribing medications Protocol/guidance for treating Texas children diagnosed with gender identity disorder, gender dysphoria or endocrine disorders Protocol/guidance on how to “wean” a Texas child off gender transitioning care The other demand gave the same deadline date for the hospital to answer questions about the above points under oath.

Both demands include a notice that failure to comply could result in a misdemeanor criminal charge that would carry a $5,000 fine or jail confinement of up to a year.

Hospital leaders affirm no Texas ties

While OAG extended its reach across state lines, the hospital has not, according to the hospital’s Chief Medical Operations Officer Dr. Ruth McDonald and two hospital senior directors.

McDonald, in a sworn affidavit, told the court that the hospital does not have property or accounts, nor employees who provide “gender-affirming care” (or administrative services for that care) in Texas or based in Texas.

“Likewise, SCH [Seattle Children’s Hospital] providers have not provided telemedicine services to Texas residents for ‘gender-affirming care’…or ‘Gender Transitioning or Gender Reassignment Procedures and Treatments,'” said McDonald in her affidavit. “Based on a search of records by our revenue cycle department, there is no record that SCH has provided any ‘gender-affirming care’…or ‘Gender Transitioning or Gender Reassignment Procedures and Treatments’…using public money from the State of Texas or with reimbursement from Texas’s Medicaid or Texas’s child health plan programs.”

The affidavit also claims that the hospital “has not marketed or advertised” transition-related medical care in Texas.

The two other affidavits were filed by a senior director responsible for the hospital’s email system and the senior director responsible for the hospital’s electronic health records system. Both swear that all of the servers and devices providing those services are based in Seattle.

Sham requests and overreach of authority

“The Demands should also be set aside because they are not bona fide investigation into violations of the DTPA and therefore are not proper exercise of the Attorney General’s authority,” the lawsuit states. “The Demands are an improper attempt by the Attorney General to investigate and enforce recently-enacted [Texas] SB 14 against Seattle Children’s based on healthcare services that may have been provided by or at Seattle Children’s within the State of Washington.”

The lawsuit cites definitions made in Senate Bill 14 that restricts the law’s scope to Texas:

“Seattle Children’s is not (and cannot be) in violation of SB 14. The Demands are, therefore, an improper and ultra vires attempt to enforce SB 14 beyond the scope of the statute and beyond the authority of the Attorney General,” the lawsuit states. “The Attorney General, through the Demands for documents and information…is improperly attempting to investigate healthcare that did not occur in Texas.”

Along a similar line, the hospital’s attorneys claim that such an investigation violates the U.S. Constitution’s dormant Commerce Clause, which prevents States from enforcing “protectionist” laws that would erode a national marketplace.

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pledged on Tuesday to remove himself from Colorado’s Republican primary ballot in response to the state’s Supreme Court’s ruling that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run in the state over his activity surrounding Jan. 6.

Ramaswamy promised to stay off the ballot until Trump’s eligibility is restored. He called upon his and Trump’s 2024 GOP primary opponents to take the same steps.

“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Nikki Haley do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” Ramaswamy said in a statement.

Ramaswamy’s statements came shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court decided on Tuesday evening that Trump is disqualified from running for the GOP presidential nomination in their state because he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says former officeholders cannot run again if they’ve engaged in insurrection against the U.S.

Colorado’s high court said Trump engaged in insurrection due to his activity surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A Trump spokesperson said they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shortly before pledging to remove himself from Colorado’s primary ballot in solidarity with Trump, Ramaswamy told ABC News that while it would admittedly be easier to win without the front-runner in the race, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling against the former president strikes him as “appalling for the future of our country.”

“And to tell you the truth, it would be a lot easier for me to get elected if Trump wasn't in this race, but that's not – it's not about me, and it's not about another candidate,” Ramaswamy said, speaking to ABC News after his campaign event in Garner, Iowa. “This is wrong. And I think that this is a flagrant violation of the rule of law.”

Later, in Mason City, Iowa, at his seventh and final event of the day on Tuesday, Ramaswamy told a packed bar of voters of his opposition to the court's decision.

Asked by ABC News later how withdrawing from the ballot will affect his path to the nomination (there are 37 Republican delegates up for grabs in Colorado), Ramaswamy predicted that every remaining Republican candidate will follow suit.

“I think every Republican will end up withdrawing, which means that that won't affect anyone's path to the nomination,” he said.

After Ramaswamy first released his statement about removing himself from the Colorado ballot over the court’s Trump decision, the Colorado Republican Party responded to the candidate in a post on X, noting that he would not need to withdraw from the contest because they’d be shifting from the state-run primary to a party-run caucus if the ruling was to stand.

That move, however, would likely trigger a rule change from the Republican National Committee, which has already approved the state party’s nomination plan.

“We would seek a waiver and probably get it,” the Colorado Republican Party’s Chairman, Dave Williams, told ABC News.

The RNC has not responded to ABC's request for comment.

No freedom was ever gained peacefully or by asking nicely. Demanding people protest "peacefully" is demanding their death.

Also why doesn't Hexbear have a feminism com?

This David Sheen guy is very sharp. He talks a lot about the Kahanists, in decades past previously designated as a terrorist organisation in Israel but now part of the ruling government.

Here are some other videos of his, 10/10 must watch:

How the most racist (Kahanist) Zionists took over the Israeli government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFl4U2NRJTg

How the Democratic Party are carrying water for the extreme Zionists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzPEt9VU9rQ

How the current government in Israel is the most racist ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4SL5EHHZfU

How the Kahanists want (and are creating) a Theocracy in Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9wUcnXvlY0&t=1s