Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
We’re not going anywhere — are we?
House Judiciary Committee vows to keep impeachment proceedings going during Trump’s next term. I’m all for Congressional paralysis, but Republicans might make a persuasive argument to voters who actually want the government to function that, unless the Democrats are denied a majority, nothing’s going to get done.
Mr. Integrity does a pinky swear
In a rare public rebuke, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court slammed the FBI Tuesday for misleading it in applications to wiretap a former Trump campaign aide ….
…
“The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,” FISA court presiding Judge Rosemary Collier wrote in an opinion for the court published Tuesday.
“The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”
I can answer Judge Collier’s question, easily.
Babylon Bee, on the scene
“Oh, look! Is that Trump committing another impeachable act?”
WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to sources in Congress, Mitch McConnell briefly distracted Democrats this morning while he signaled for hundreds of conservative judges to sneak by.
"Hey, look over there -- is that Trump committing an impeachable offense!?" he pondered aloud as he walked by the House chambers. "Oh man, he's colluding, corrupting, and conspiring all over the place!"
"Huh? Where? I don't see him," said Nancy Pelosi, craning her neck and blinking furiously to get a better view.
"Oh, right there. Yup, I'm pretty sure that's him. Oh, look, it's Putin and the Ukrainian president with him too -- and they're exchanging some kind of briefcase or something?" McConnell continued, stifling laughter. "But it's probably nothing, never mind."
House Democrats' excitement got the better of them. They scrambled in the direction McConnell was gesturing. "Me first!" screamed Nancy Pelosi as she pulled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's hair and hurled her into the wall.
….
As they scurried away, McConnell gave the signal, and a flood of conservative federal judges walked by. After being confirmed by the Senate in under three minutes, they dispersed to serve out their lifetime terms across the country, with the Democrats none the wiser.
(Bumped) 28 Baldwin Farms N., sold for $1.825 million. The town appraises it at $3,312,400, and it started off last February at $2.875, but the bastardized-French style so popular in the late 60s is a bit of a drag on the market today, so an under-two price seems about right.
UPDATE: Johnny Bowhunter reminded me that we had a price contest going on this house, and even very nicely provided me with the link. I’d guessed $1.795, and all the other contestants were within a hand grenade toss of the final price.
New toilet designed to become unbearable to sit on after five minutes
The toilet has been sloped at 13 degrees as it is inconvenient for the employee but not harmful, in fact it could have some health benefits around improving posture, according to Mr Gill.
'Anything higher would cause wider problems. Thirteen degrees is not too inconvenient, but you'd soon want to get off the seat'.
StandardToilet say their sloped solution would help to reduce employees social media use and improve productivity by cutting down on toilet time.
Not everybody agrees that toilet time is time wasted.
'Viewing time spent in the toilet as a threat is the wrong way of looking at the issue entirely,' Charlotte Jones, co-author of the Around the Toilet project, told Wired.
'I think the importance of the toilet as a refuge during the workday says more about inadequate workspaces, heavy workloads and unsupportive management than it does about the workers themselves.'
Snow joke
I’ll probably start on prepping my gingerbread dough
The announcement follows the September passage of Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) by the California Assembly and its signing by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Targeted primarily at ride-hailing and food delivery companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and PostMates, the legislation requires gig economy workers to be hired as employees with benefits like health coverage and minimum wage protections.
As it pertains to Vox, the law forbids nonemployees from submitting more than 35 pieces per year. Most of the changes at Vox will be at SB Nation, which has writers all over the country covering professional and college sports, but will also touch other sites like Curbed and Eater, according to a person familiar with the matter.
AB5 has been staunchly opposed by gig economy companies, whose business models could be uprooted. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash pledged $90 million on a ballot initiative for the 2020 election that would exempt them from AB5. The bill has the potential to change the employment status of more than 1 million workers in California.
And see this, also from CNBC:
California’s new employment law has boomeranged and is starting to crush freelancers
California’s new AB 5 employment law takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, and freelancers are already feeling the squeeze with a decline in business and income.
The law codifies the ABC test — which helps employers determine who should be classified as a freelancer — giving exemptions to some types of freelancers, such as architects, doctors, insurance agents and truck drivers.
Experts say many other blue states, such as New York and New Jersey, are considering adopting similar laws.
According to Upwork’s 2019 Freelancing in America survey, there is [sic] a reported 57 million American freelancers contributing an excess of $1 trillion to the economy each year.
And the san francisco police are powerless to arrest him
Reader Barometer Soup sends along this little slice of San Francisco life.
In November, San Francisco voters elected radical liberal Chesa Boudin as the city’s newest district attorney based on his promises not to prosecute so-called “quality of life crimes” like public urination, defecation, and camping on the sidewalk, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes,” he said. “Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted. Many of these crimes are still being prosecuted; we have a long way to go to decriminalize poverty and homelessness.”
Boudin was raised by criminals involved in the Weather Underground, a Communist revolutionary group best known for domestic terrorism in the 1970s, including the bombings of the Pentagon and police memorials, as well as arson attacks.
Boudin’s parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for their roles in the robbery of an armored vehicle that left three police officers dead in 1981.
Chesa Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, both founders of the Weather Underground who have gone on to become influential in liberal politics.
Chesa Boudin previously worked in the San Francisco Public Defenders Office after graduating from Yale Law School in 2011. Before that, Boudin worked as a translator for Hugo Chavez during his tenure as the Socialist president of Venezuela.
San Franciscans voted for this, so no tears here.
Wait, you mean I have to fill in my name?!
That’s a comment made in response to the B.U. economist/barista Ocasio Cortez’s whine that Congress’s subsidized Obamacare program, with 66 options, is too complicated for her to understand.
Ordinary people are allowed three levels of insurance under Obamacare, subsidies stop at $100,000, and all premiums are paid from pre-tax earnings. Not so the privileged:
Members of Congress get to choose one of those 66 gold-level plans and receive subsidies for 72% of the cost of the premiums. And the 28% they do have to pay comes out of pre-tax payroll deductions. But that's not all! They can get free care through the Office of the Attending Physician and free outpatient care at military hospitals in Washington D.C., too.
This is the "terrible" healthcare that AOC is complaining about. While Congress was shielded from the bank account-emptying scheme that Obamacare is, anyone who has had to buy into it without help from the government knows the truth. It was designed to fail. It was designed to push us into socialized medicine.
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