Confirming the first cartoon in the previous post

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IRONY: Clooney’s 'Goodnight and Good Luck' Ends With Image of Musk That PROVES Media Trust Is DEAD

Amazing what growing up in Riverside with a "finishing" at a fine school in Switzerland can produce (Updated)

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UPDATE:

January 24, 2025: “Banning TikTok has nothing to do with the Chinese, it’s about Israel”.

December 9, 2024: she told Piers Morgan that she felt “joy” about the brutal killing, “along with so many other Americans,” she claimed.

Related?

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home set on fire by arsonist while his family slept

And:

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Straight to their appropriate Cayman Island accounts

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“shipping, is responsible for approximately 3% of total greenhouse gas emissions.”

Instapundit:

TARIFFS UNTHINKABLY BAD FOR TRADE, “CARBON TAXES” UNIMAGINABLY GOOD: Countries agree to reduce maritime emissions, tax carbon offenders.

UPI:

April 12 (UPI) -- More than 100 nations in the International Maritime Organization have agreed to fuel standards for ships and fees for carbon emissions offenders, which the Trump administration opposes.

In London on Friday, the United Nations agency members agreed on a draft to be formally adopted in October in an effort to cut down on global carbon emissions.

If adopted, it would go into effect in 2027 for ocean-going vessels over 5,000 gross tonnage, which collectively account for 85% of carbon dioxide emissions from the marine shipping fleet. They did not, however, agree on a levy on carbon dioxide usage, which would net roughly $60 billion a year.

The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships has 108 parties, covering 97% of the world's merchant shipping fleet by tonnage, and already has some mandatory efficiency requirements for ships.

…. IMO set a goal for shipping to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

President Donald Trump withdrew from the organization earlier this month, saying the United States would reciprocate against any fees imposed on U.S. ships. The White House and State Department yet commented on the draft proposal.

Major oil-producing states, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia, also oppose the measure, as do several small island states who abstained on the final vote. A levy for all carbon dioxide emissions was opposed by those nations as well as Brazil, China and the European Union.

“In the agreed-upon plan, there would be a new standard for the volume of emissions per unit of energy used by the ship. Ship owners that do not meet certain emission targets will have to offset their emissions or pay into the IMO net-zero fund, a measure that is forecast to raise about $10 billion.

“The fund will be used to reward ships with low emissions, support clean energy research, further the IMO's greenhouse gas reduction initiatives and support places vulnerable to climate change. The plan is reduce emissions about 8% by 2030. ….”

"The approval of draft amendments to MARPOL Annex VI mandating the IMO net-zero framework represents another significant step in our collective efforts to combat climate change, to modernize shipping and demonstrates that IMO delivers on its commitments, IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said.

According to The Washington Post, some of the opposition to the plan is that "2030 is less than 5 years away ... As a matter of scientific, engineering and technical reality it will not be possible to reduce emissions beyond 6% within that time frame for all ships, leading to unnecessary penalization that will result in significant impacts on trade, food and energy security and our beloved sector."

Grift for the members of the UN’s International Maritime Organization and their friends, while they pay lip service, but do nothing about the major, huge threat to international shipping, which a naive observer, observing its title, might think would be the IMO’s main concern:

How the Shipping Crisis in the Red Sea is Impacting Trade

Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping has meant that global shipping is facing major disruptions, rerouting vessels, leading to an affect in trade

​​​​​​​Another major crisis is unfolding in the global shipping industry as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea continue to disrupt one of the world's most essential trade routes.

Since late 2023, Houthi rebels based in Yemen have targeted commercial vessels, which has forced shipping companies to reroute their journeys around Africa's Cape of Good Hope instead of passing through the Suez Canal.

This situation not only raises security concerns but also sends shockwaves throughout global supply chains, affecting trade from Asia to Europe and beyond.

The Detours and Rising Costs

The Red Sea, connecting to the Mediterranean via the 120-mile-long Suez Canal, is ordinarily a major path for container shipping linking Asia and Europe.

Typically, about 30% of the global container trade passes through this route. However, container shipments in the region have dropped by 75% since these security threats escalated. Many shipping companies now altogether avoid the Suez Canal, opting to navigate around Africa instead.

This necessary detour adds an extra 10 to 14 days to the traditional 30 to 40-day voyage from Asia to Europe, leading to significantly higher fuel costs, increased insurance premiums and logistic complications for companies depending on timely deliveries.

According to Xeneta’s Chief Analyst, Peter Sand, the increased risk is clear: "All ships transiting the Suez Canal must sail through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and the Houthi militia has made clear that any vessel is a target."

Interesting, but it'll go nowhere; business as usual, for D.C.

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Charlie Kirk “How did Joe Biden get so rich?”

James Comer “No one's ever been able to figure that out. What we were able to do is subpoena the bank records of his son and his brother. We found that they took in $27 million from bad people in bad countries, not for any business purpose, because the Bidens didn't own a real business. The only business that we could determine in our year and a half long investigation was they were selling access to Joe. There's a term for that that's called lobbying, I guess you could say. -

Number 1, You're not supposed to have immediate family members that lobby

Number 2, If you lobby foreign entities, you're supposed to register as a foreign agent There's a bill, a law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. None of his family registered for that. What we found during our investigation was from the IRS whistleblowers that they never paid a penny of taxes on this $27 million. So $27 million coming in tax free, that's a pretty good start.”

The nation mourns, and vows to change its ways

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Starbucks Employees Nationwide Stop Working (Briefly) After ICE Took Two of Their Union Siblings

Twitchy:

Earlier, our own Amy Curtis reported that some café employees learned that the actual minimum wage is zero after the workers at a small chain of cafés decided they could strong-arm owners into their woke demands. Instead, the owner shut down all four locations in Minneapolis. [It’s a great story: see below - Ed]

We're not suggesting that Starbucks is going to close down because of the woke employees they seek out. People trying to pay off their gender studies degrees depend on Starbucks for a regular paycheck. But the unionized workers of Starbucks did participate in a short work stoppage to protest President Donald Trump and ICE, who recently took two of their "union siblings."

"Whether you're Starbucks or ICE, you mess with us, you mess with all 10,000 of us."

The story passed on in my own family is that my great-grandfather Gideon Fountain, who in 1838 started as a floor sweeper in his Uncle Bill’s NYC carpenter’s shop at the age of ten and slowly built his own very successful building business.* Arriving at his shop one morning, he discovered his workers outside picketing, demanding recognition as members of a then-newly-formed builders union. Fountain looked over the scene, sighed, decided that it was time to retire, and turned his carriage around and went home. He never opened the business again.

That anecdote opens the way to this current tale:

Leftist Cafe Workers In Minneapolis Learn the Hard Way the Minimum Wage Is ALWAYS Zero

In Minneapolis, the workers at a small chain of cafes decided they could strong-arm owners into their woke demands.

Instead, the owner is shutting them down:

Last summer, staff at Café Cerés successfully unionized through Unite Here Local 17, winning 88 percent of the vote across the café’s four locations. Their priorities included higher wages, improved health care and PTO, and more consistent scheduling. Workers have been in bargaining for their first contract since August 2024, according to Unite Here, and had four bargaining sessions this month. 

The DDP group says it’s working with Unite Here as the closure proceeds, and that its 'immediate priority is to ensure that our impacted Café team members are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.' In a statement, Unite Here Local 17 had this to say: 'Café Cerés charges $16 for a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich but refuses to pay its baristas more than minimum wage. The restaurant industry is fundamentally broken, and workers will not stop organizing and demanding more from their employers until they have the basic respect, living wage, and healthcare they need.'

*Great-grandfather Gideon has passed on to that great sawdust pile in the sky, but the family’s residence he built at 153 E. 62nd Street survives. As a church, alas, and worse, no longer in our name.

She’s a modest little woman, and she has much to be modest about

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She was a little less modest then, hiding only half her face, but why is the gesticulating person on her right unmasked? Signaling that whitmer’s telling barefaced lies?

Clement Attlee’s post-war performance as Prime Minister may have justly earned Churchill’s scorn, but Gretchen Whitmer outdid him in ineptitude and oppressive incompetence during her own time in the political spotlight. She was one of the worst of the red state governors during the panicdemic, locking people in their houses, shutting down small businesses while letting her big store donors remain open (but no selling grass seed!), forbidding travel across state lines unless her husband wanted to visit their lakefront home in Wisconsin, and so on. And on. So it’s appropriate that she should hide he face now: she richly deserves the ridicule she’s receiving.

Here's ANOTHER Pic of Gov. Whitmer In the Oval Office With Trump (at Least We THINK That's Her)

UPDATE — from The Daily Caller:

Is there NOTHING he can't — and won't do?

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In Florida, a small plane suffers mechanical failure and crashes, and Chinese dupe/collaborator Eric Swalwell knows who is responsible.

NBC 6 South Florida:

What to Know

  • Three people were killed when a small plane crashed in Boca Raton Friday morning

  • The crash happened after the plane, a Cessna 310, had taken off from Boca Raton Airport

  • Officials said there were reports the plane was experiencing mechanical issues before it went down

  • Videos showed a ball of fire and heavy smoke after the plane crashed near roadways and railroad tracks

  • A man who was in a car on the ground was injured when the plane came down next to his vehicle

  • The FAA and NTSB are investigating the cause of the crash

Of course, the nefarious bastard is also working his evil up north on New York City as well, because Donald Trump hates America:

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." Milton Friedman

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“The people who go around talking about their soft heart — I share their — I admire them for the softness of their heart, but unfortunately, it very often extends to their head as well, because the fact is that the programs that are labeled as being for the poor, for the needy, almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors intend them to have.”

birth of a conservative

Bohemian Greenwich Village not so liberal anymore as crime, drugs push residents to beg for more cops

“Enough is enough,” said Village-raised Trevor Sumner, president of the Washington Square Association. “Liberalism is being challenged and people are realizing that our attempts to honor some ideals are leading to worst outcomes.”

The bohemian Mecca made famous for its anything-goes attitude, counterculture musical scene and clashes with police is begging for law enforcement, a shocking new survey found.

The Sixth Precinct Community Council polled 600 neighborhood residents and found 487 of them — 83% — want more cops on the streets.

And 74% of Villagers said the Empire State needed stronger prosecution for drug dealing, while 80% thought New York needed stricter bail laws, according to the first-of-its-kind survey, conducted in February and March.

Sumner says he would have described himself as “quite liberal” up until two years ago, but his personal views shifted when conditions in the park took a nosedive after the pandemic.

But it’s not just in the park. The Sixth Precinct routinely posts on X about nabbing drug dealers plying their trade in broad daylight on Sixth Avenue — something that would have been unimaginable only a few years back.

“It’s very hard for me to unsee the realities of the outcomes on the streets. It’s shifted how almost everyone I know who’s active in the community is thinking about voting,” he said, blaming Albany’s bail reform and discovery changes for the unending cycle of lawlessness.

…. The conservative shift is showing up in voting records too, a Post analysis found. Nearly 13% of voters in the neighborhood backed President Trump in 2024, up from the 8% of 2020 supporters, according to Board of Elections data.

Eli Klein, who runs an art gallery in Greenwich Village, grew up in a very prominent liberal family – his mother Janet Benshoof was the founder of the Center for Reproductive Rights and a champion of the left. But the former lifelong Democrat said the party abandoned them.

“The left has gotten more extreme as opposed to us really going the other way. There’s a lot of recidivist criminals on the streets. The progressives push really soft on crime stuff. It’s hard to believe that a huge section of our population wants career criminals on the streets,” he said.

Longtime village residents say the free-love energy of the past has morphed into something less poetic.

“There’s a lot more crazies, unstable people. It’s just an eyesore, it’s disconcerting,” said Philip Spinelli, 75, who’s lived on Christopher Street since the 1960s.

Back then, they say, they were protesting for a cause. Now, not so much.

“We have literal zombies walking through the streets and framing it as somehow these reforms have given them some kind of dignity – this is not dignity,” said Sumner.

RELATED:

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Oakland Chinatown businesses say they’re getting fined thousands for graffiti on their own property. 

In Oakland, Chinatown merchants are raising the alarm after many are being hit with thousands of dollars in fines for graffiti on their properties.

Shirley Lou knows how this story goes. On any given day, the supermarket she manages is tagged. They paint over it and then it happens again.

“We cannot control. We clean up and they come again. So many times, but the city — I don’t know why they are charging me money,” said Luo, manager at Won Kee Supermarket.

On Tuesday, she tried to pay the latest fine of $500. The city told Luo she owes $3,000, which includes late fees.

“It’s not my fault. Not our fault. It’s somebody go to the roof and mark so many graffiti,” Luo said.

This is not an isolated issue. Throughout Oakland’s Chinatown, business owners are reporting thousands of dollars in fines for not painting over tags fast enough.

“We close at 4 o’clock when we go home, and we cannot watch people do things like that. We can’t. So, the city has to help,” said Susan Lam, Oakland business owner.

As Lawrence Person wrote in 2023, “Defund The Police + Decriminalize Shoplifting = ‘Food Deserts.’” Oakland’s government attempting to push their grocery stores out of business is also guaranteed to make that happen.

Who do they think they are, the English?

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John Hinderaker @ Powerline

You can’t make this stuff up. In Germany, a newspaper editor has been fined and sentenced to seven months in prison for posting a meme:

The Bamberg district court in Bavaria sentenced Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels this week to seven months in prison on probation and a fine of nearly sixty per cent of his annual income, or 210 ‘daily rates’, for posting an image on social media of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding an altered sign.

The newspaper editor was convicted of committing “defamation directed against people in political life.”

So, what did the sign say?

The common meme tactic of changing the words on signs held by politicians for satirical purposes was used to make Faeser’s sign read: “I hate freedom of speech”.

thus demonstrating that truth is no defense