Burning out black businesses? You've got a friend(s) in Hollywood

You gotta problm with that?

Hollywood celebs are bailing out looters and rioters to the applause of their peers

Bodyguards, gated communities, no pigs here!

Not so long ago, LA’s high-profile elite visibly put down stakes in the flats of Beverly Hills. No longer. Today’s wealthy—Saudi princes and Oscar winners among them—are willing to pay a premium for real privacy. LA’s ritziest gated communities, from Malibu’s Colony to Beverly Park to Hancock Park’s historic Fremont Place, provide a level of security and (paparazzi-free) privacy that public streets no longer offer.

In terms of home size and value, the gated communities linked by the Mulholland corridor are a cut above. Per Mauricio Umansky of The Agency, the pecking order descends from number one Beverly Park, notable for the size of its lots and $20 million-plus megamansions. (Umanskyhas sold 14 of the last 18 homes on the market.) Brentwood Country Estates, home to GiseleBündchen and Tom Brady’s stylish just-built manse, follows; then, it’s on to Beverly Ridge Estates and Mulholland Estates, where Christina Aguilera bought earlier this year for $10 million-plus and Paris Hilton and Charlie Sheen are neighbors. Bel Air Crest is another popular neighborhood, where $9–$10 million is the ballpark figure to move in.

Divided into north and south sections, there are a total of 73 lots in the ultra fancy Beverly Park. In the fall, President Obama [who has his own bodyguards, as do Michelle and the girls] attended not one but two fundraisers in the barricaded enclave: the first at former Laker Magic Johnson and wife Cookie’s 12,169-square-foot mansion.

On the opposite side of town, the Malibu Colony is another long-established, guard-gated enclave that continues to hold and excel in value. “Malibu Colony will increase or remain strong because you have a locked-in community in a prime location, which is gated, private, and secure,” explains Stephen Shapiro, chairman of the Westside Estate Agency.

RELATED: LA Council President who is calling for the gutting of that city’s police department had an LAPD round-the-clock security detail at her house from April until June, ending it only when a television news team called her for comment. asked how many other city council members were enjoying this perk, she said she “didn’t know, but would look into it”. So far, she hasn’t reported back.

You can't tell the truth here, we're a real estate firm!

Maybe I’ll invite him to join forces with me.

A Corcoran realtor has been fired for trying to lure Big Apple home buyers to Florida — by using a photo of an NYPD van in flames during the recent George Floyd protests.

“Looking for Change?” South Florida agent Joseph Swedroe asked in an email blast — juxtaposing the engulfed cop vehicle with images of boating and sandy beaches in the Sunshine State, according to The Real Deal.

His email asked potential buyers if they wanted to live in “chaos or comfort,” alluding to violent clashes and looting that rocked the city during mass protests over Floyd’s death, the real estate site said.

Swedroe — a licensed real estate agent since 2010 — insisted there was “nothing offensive” in his blast because “everything in the email was easily available online, or in the newspaper or on TV.”

“It’s no secret that New York has been the scene of riots and vandalism and that South Florida is a much quieter and calmer place,” he said, according to The Real Deal.

“It was just a marketing piece to get attention,” he said.

However, he was “swiftly disassociated” from Corcoran Group, a spokesperson told the site, saying it has “zero tolerance for this behavior.”

Are spec builders crawling out from shelter?

11 Ledge Road, 3 lots asking $7.250 million, is pending after 45 days. The buyer could be an end-user, I suppose, but that’s a lot of money to pay for a single, 2-acre building lot, especially when it’s not waterfront.

The reason for the impatience is that if Trump doesn't win re-election, this conspiracy and coup attempt, already buried by the press, will disappear forever

Who, me?

Barr promises that some “familiar names” are in his sights.

…. Additionally, an ex-FBI lawyer in that case even falsified a CIA email submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in order to make Page's communications with Russians appear nefarious, the DOJ inspector general found. The FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was allegedly told by the CIA that Page had reported his Russian contacts and was essentially acting as an informant -- only for Clinesmith to allegedly omit that exculpatory information in a surveillance warrant application that framed Page's communications with Russians as a sign that he was a secret foreign agent.

Barr said he couldn't comment on whether criminal charges were coming, including concerning Clinesmith -- but that people shouldn't become impatient. The DOJ has concluded that the Page warrant was legally improper and lacked probable cause.

"For the first time in American history, police organizations and the national security organizations were used to spy on a campaign, and there was no basis for it," Barr said. "The media largely drove that -- and all kinds of sensational claims were being made about the president that could have affected the election. And then and then later on, in his administration, there were actions taken that really appear to be efforts to sabotage his campaign. And that has to be looked at. And if people want to say that I'm political because I am looking at those potential abuses of power, so be it. But that's the job of the attorney general."

Poor Man's Hill woes

Welcome to the Poor House

95 Richmond Hill Road expired unsold in December at $5.975 million and is back today at $4.750. Owners paid $7.450 for it in 2007, but even this new price may not stop the bleeding. I reported last week that 85 Richmond Hill, built at the same time and which sold new in 2006 for $7.1 million is currently pending, asking price $3.995. Houses here have not done well.

Another contract on Tomac

21 Tomac Avenue, Old Greenwich, asking $2.695 million. Pretty much the same house as its neighbor at 23 Tomac, also priced at $2.695, which I reported pending a few days ago. Both partially-built by developer Gary Flyer and finished by another. The difference is that 23 went in 8 days, 21 sat for 434 days; I attribute that more to the changed market than anything else.

"A generation that does not know history has no past; and no future" — R. Heinlein

A title whose import has come round again

“Gone With the Wind” is cancelled out of fear that stupid viewers won’t recognize it as a 1930s movie about events in 1860.

Obviously not the most egregious example of the current cancel culture, but the stories of book burnings, professors driven from universities for failure to spout the party line, and the removal of western culture studies from our schools are all too depressing to mention this early in the morning.

Perhaps saddest of all is the banning of humor from proper society, but then, the Maoists were never known for their sense of levity.

In contrast to the story below, some acts are so heinous that there's no need to wait for facts

Maine businesses cut ties with ice cream maker after he tells employee that the rap music she’s blasting in the store is obscene and offensive to customers. Racist1

Shain’s of Maine lost its most prominent customer – the Portland Sea Dogs – Friday after a social media storm caused by an accusation of racial bias against the Sanford ice cream maker’s owner.

The online protests of Shain’s of Maine began Wednesday morning after Melitta Nichols posted on Facebook about an incident involving her daughter Iaomi, who worked at Shain’s and who is black. Nichols posted that Jeff Shain, the company’s owner, asked her daughter why he couldn’t use a racial slur.

…

It also prompted at least one black women who worked at Shain’s, Alyvia Parris of Alfred, to say she had witnessed Shain using racially insensitive language on several occasions, something echoed by others on social media.

Besides the Sea Dogs, businesses that cut ties with Shain’s this week included The Ice Cream Dugout in North Windham, The Saco Scoop in Saco and Maxim’s Desserts in Kennebunkport.

Jeff Shain did not respond to a phone call and email Friday asking him for more details about this week’s incident, and about social media comments about him.

But in a message posted on Facebook on Wednesday evening, Shain said his comments to Iaomi Nichols were about words in a song, and came after workers at the ice cream parlor were playing music with “offensive language for our place of business.”

“Let this be clear: I was commenting on the offensive language used in the music. At no time did I comment on anyone’s race, or direct racial slurs at anyone. I did not mean for any of this conversation to be offensive and there was absolutely no intent to hurt anyone,” Shain wrote. “I am sorry for any hurt that it has caused. I believed then, and I still believe, that songs with offensive language should not be played in businesses that serve the public and that was the context in which this conversation took place. I want to assure the community that our business is welcoming to people of all races.”

Contacted midday Friday, Iaomi Nichols said in a Facebook message that she would call the Press Herald “when available” to talk about the incident.

Once her handlers get her story in proper form.

Shain’s makes a high-quality premium ice cream — certainly better than the brand of minor league baseball served up by the sea Dogs — and worth searching for when visiting New England.

"Suspected" looters? Alternatively, I suppose these were simply disaffected citizens expressing their justified anger at a racist society

Even the NY post knows when to toe the line. Besides, theft and rioting aren’t “violence” to begin with, so why the fuss?

Surveillance footage released by police on Tuesday night shows over a dozen suspected looters breaking into Macy’s flagship on Herald Square last week amid widespread mayhem in Manhattan.

The suspects can be seen crowding near an entrance of the 34th Street superstore, with two whacking a glass door with a hammer and a wooden baseball bat about 9:40 p.m. last Monday.

Others in the video are then seen prying open one of two revolving doors with their bare hands, leading to a mass dash inside.

Police said the brazen burglars made off with about $10,000 in merchandise.

Once inside, the hammer-wielding suspect, who wasn’t wearing a mask, was caught on camera swinging the tool at something else.

One of those other things is packing their bags and calling the movers

MUNI executives heading off to ruin idaho

San Francisco’s municipal transit system, MUNI, will no longer transport police to protests: “we have a lot of other things to do”.

Yesterday I posted “Wealthy Buyers in Mad rush to Live San Francisco”.

Two unrelated stories, I’m sure.

Out east in Fun City this sort of wokeness is unnecessary; NYC cops would be terrified to ride the subways in the first place.