It's all about preserving the union, of course

Well, that was three full years ago

Well, that was three full years ago

NYT opposes impeachment — or it did

Before the election of 2016, Hillary Clinton’s illegal mishandling of classified information was a hot topic of conversation. By hosting her email on a private, unsecure server, she was violating several laws regarding the mishandling of classified information, and by deleting her emails that were under subpoena she was obstructing justice. Less than a week before the election, the New York TimesEditorial Board wrote a scathing piece blasting Donald Trump and Republicans for the “particularly bizarre and dangerous tactic” of “warning that they may well seek to impeach Hillary Clinton if she wins, or, short of that, tie her up with endless investigations and other delaying tactics.”

“Of all the arguments advanced by the Trump forces, this has to be among the most preposterous,” they wrote, “In effect, what they’re saying is, Mrs. Clinton won’t be able to govern, because we won’t let her. So don’t waste your vote on her. Vote for us.”

“The tactic is a rejection of the nation’s need of a functioning government,” they continued. Well, isn’t that interesting? Ah, but there’s more. They called the strategy “nonsensical” and said that these threats “could cause real damage by encouraging Republicans in the next Congress to effectively take the government hostage, exacting revenge by making sure that nothing Mrs. Clinton proposes ever comes to pass.” Wow, that sounds an awful lot like what Democrats are doing to Trump right now.

Oops

"So, you have recordings of both [Russian journalist Ksenia] Sobchak and [Russian model and singer Olga] Buzova where they're discussing the compromising material on Mr. Trump?" Schiff asked the callers posing as Parubiy.

"Absolutely," one of the pranksters responded.

"Well obviously we would welcome a chance to get copies of those recordings," Schiff said later in the call after he and the fake "Parubiy" go on to discuss more details of the bogus allegations.

Slumbering in the graveyard, the elephant rolls over, startling all of us — it's still alive!

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29 Round Hill Club Road, asking $12.5 million, has sold for $9.3. It last sold for $16.250 million in 2008, was put back up for sale in 2013 for $18 million, and when the owner grew dispirited, he donated the thing to the Boys and Girls Club in 2011, who continued that sales effort until now.

The house, a 1959 so-so, was redesigned/renovated by Doug Vanderhorn in 2007 — good — and “refreshed” some time later by Cindy Rinfret — bad, but her improvements will surely not survive this new owners tenancy so no real harm done.

It will be fun to see what the next sale fetches.

The zebra, of course (the obligatory sunburst mirror is in the living room, guarding the Bombay Furniture tea tray tables)

The zebra, of course (the obligatory sunburst mirror is in the living room, guarding the Bombay Furniture tea tray tables)

Down we go

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17 Hawkwood Lane, which sold for $2..925 million in 2006, has reduced its price today to $1.599.

The driveway suggests what’s in store for the visitor

The driveway suggests what’s in store for the visitor

Hawkwood is a good location and street, and No. 17 will certainly find a buyer, eventually. But another property that took a price cut today, 3 Gaston Farm Road, is not so fortunately situated. Its owners paid $1.70 million in 1990 ($3.4 in current dollars) and today dropped to $2.250, with room to fall from there. Dated, 1988 construction, too big — 9,000 sq. ft., and too remote; what’s the market for this type of house these days?

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They warned us they would do it, and then they did it

From the anonymous authoress of NEO:

CIA, FBI, State Department, all vowed to thwart Trump and boasted of that intention..

Here’s an excerpt from one typical article of the type, published in Vanity Fair on February 1, 2017, twelve days after Trump’s inauguration [emphasis mine]:

Others, however, view resistance as a part of the job. “Policy dissent is in our culture,” one diplomat in Africa, who signed the letter circulating among foreign diplomats, told The New York Times. “We even have awards for it,” this person added, in reference to the State Department’s “Constructive Dissent” award. One Justice Department employee told the Post, “You’re going to see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage,” and added that “people here will resist and push back against orders they find unconscionable,” by whistle-blowing, leaking to the press, and lodging internal complaints. Others are staying in contact with officials appointed by President Obama to learn more about how they can undermine Trump’s agenda and attending workshops on how to effectively engage in civil disobedience, the Post reports.

When asked how the opposition emerging at this stage compares to past administrations, Tom Malinow­ski, who served as Obama’s assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, sarcastically told the Post, “Is it unusual? There’s nothing unusual about the entire national security bureaucracy of the United States feeling like their commander in chief is a threat to U.S. national security. That happens all the time. It’s totally usual. Nothing to worry about.”

The “nothing unusual” part was sarcasm, of course. But the rest was deadly serious. The plan was in place from the start, and it’s not some wild conspiracy-mongering to say so. This is a clandestine conspiracy, but not a completely secret one in the sense that we were told about its general thrust in advance by the proud perpetrators themselves. An interesting detail from those quotes is that “Obama officials” were apparently in charge of orchestrating this.

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist also noticed the trend back in the beginning. She wrote the following in an article from January 17, 2017. That’s a few days before the inauguration:

Dwight Eisenhower warned that if we didn’t stay vigilant, the military-industrial complex would start creeping into politics with pernicious motives all its own. The intelligence community’s war of leaks against Trump before he’s even taken office is just the latest questionably politicized action in the decades since Eisenhower’s farewell address. And it’s safe to say that the intelligence community pushing unproven and absurd allegations about a president-elect’s sexual perversions is probably way worse than anything Ike imagined.

In order to understand how we got to this perilous place and get a handle on what’s going on, it’s worth taking a closer look at the motives and allegations of political operatives in intelligence agencies, as well as the basic timeline of allegations of Russian electoral interference in the last few months. Far from discrediting Trump, it paints a worrisome portrait of the deep state gone rogue, desperate to stop a man who, whatever his considerable flaws, is an outsider to Washington.

She then goes into a series of warnings issued to Trump to beware of ruffling the feathers of the intelligence community. The most famous one, with which you might be familiar, was issued by Chuck Schumer: 

…President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities.

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

Remember, this was before Trump was inaugurated. 

More:

Presidential historian Timothy Naftali said on a CNN panel that Trump should stay “silent” lest harmful information be released against him.

NeverTrumper David Frum wrote a tweet that said, “CIA message to Trump: you mess with us, get ready for a leakstorm of Biblical proportions.”

The rest of Hemingway’s article is well worth reading, despite its age. Or maybe because of its age. It’s a reminder of how many things happened very early in the game that are congruent with and basically telegraphed what would happen with Russiagate and now Whistleblowergate.

The dark hole that was 1980s architecture

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523 North Street, which has been on there market since September, 2017, when it started at $3.195, has cut its price to $2.395, and I’m afraid even that won’t do it.

While the record doesn’t show the exact price paid for this back in 2000, the last asking price at that time was $4.495; one only hopes that it didn’t sell for anything close to that.

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Greenwich Democrats to Turner: Drop dead

The Greenwich Democratic [sic] Party has thrown its former chairman to the wolves, and let Tony Turner pay the $50,000 fine for its violation of campaign funding laws and, presumably, absorb the $350,000 he expended on the party’s behalf and the additional $15,000 fine imposed on its treasurer. Jill Oberlander et als now claim that they had no idea that the six campaign clambakes, with bands, and the dozens of mass mailings sent out by Turner touting the party’s candidates cost more than $1,000 in total, and certainly nothing approaching $350,000. “Tony deceived us”, Oberlander told Greenwich Time reporter and fellow Democrat Neil Borshuck. “We just had no idea!”

FWIW has dug up a video of the moment the Democrats broke the news to Turner that they were abandoning him. The sincere attempt to console the poor sap is truly touching, as you can see.