This sounds familiar

The feeling’s mutual

Jim Treacher

CNN’s Don Lemon brags about abandoning friends who disagree with him

William F. Buckley once said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” I’ve found this to be true in my own life, ever since I started paying attention to politics. Libs can tolerate anything but dissent. They always want to have “a conversation,” right up until you ask them to back up their fanciful assertions with facts and evidence. Then they get angry and don’t want to talk to you anymore. They realize they have no idea what they’re yammering about, the cognitive dissonance kicks in — “I’m obviously smarter than the people I hate, or else I wouldn’t hate them so much. How can this be happening to me?” — and they just shut down. After all these years, it’s still funny to me. Liberals want conservatives to shut up; conservatives want liberals to keep talking.

And I don’t even know anybody who gets paid millions of dollars to look into a TV camera and spout Democratic Party talking points. That’s an even higher level of delusion, with even less incentive to return to earth. If the average lib has no reason to listen to, well, reason, why would a CNN anchor ever spend one second considering a viewpoint that differs from his own? Why would he waste time on anybody who doesn’t have the common courtesy to just smile and nod at everything he says?

Don Lemon knows better than that.

I’ve been a political junkie since I was maybe 14, and i always enjoyed discussing and arguing politics with a few liberal friends. Point-counter-point, humerous jabs, and laughter. That changed over the years and Trump’s election finished it for good. But not by my volition; I still liked my friends, but they didn’t like me. Those few who didn’t cut me out of their life as Lemon did to his own friends remain in my world as friends only because we’ve reached an unspoken agreement to avoid politics completely. And that’s too bad, because I enjoyed the conversations, but at least we’re still friends. Most of the people whose company I once enjoyed are gone forever, by their choice.

I like to think that that’s their loss but I’m sure they’re more comfortable and feel safer without me. Sad.

Final denouement on Stanwich

We’ve been writing about the sorry saga of 398 Stanwich Road since it first went on sale in 2012 at $5.650 million. Yesterday if finally sold, for $2.9 million. While that musty have pained someone, I’m hopeful that the owner, who was transferred several years ago had a relocation package; I’m not particularly concerned about those guys because that’s part of the risk they assume when they take on the job.

Or perhaps he didn’t, in which case he’s joined his predecessor in losing money on this house. The first owner bought it new in 2004 for $5.5 million in 2004, added some major improvements and upgrades, and tried to sell it in 2008 at $6.340. There it sat until this seller happened along in 2010 and paid him $5.350. The eventual outcome of that trade is as noted above.

I’ll say this: $2.9 is a small price to pay for such a large, well-built home. Of course, I may have a different opinion five years from now — check back.

It's not just our national media that's suppressing free speech

You don’t need a mask if your heart is pure

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Elison limits Trump rally to 250 attendees.

Ellison defended his actions in a statement to ABC5 News as part of his responsibility to keep Minnesotans “safe” from the coronavirus.

“We did not cancel this event: indeed, we have no authority to cancel events and have never cancelled an event,” he said, and added, “As Attorney General charged with enforcing our executive orders, I take very seriously my responsibility to stop it from spreading and cannot not exempt anyone, regardless of their political views, from complying with requirements to keep all Minnesotans safe from it.”

“It is a well known, scientifically established fact, that attendees at BLM protests, even partly violent protests, are protected from ravages of King Flu”, Ellison told FWIW. “So those guys are good to go. Anyone else has to get my permission, and for that they’re gonna have to show me their voter ID”.

By any means necessary — including crushing dissent by the wrong sort of people (these aren’t those people)

It's good to be Governor; or in my Granny's case, to know one

Ma’s was probably not quite so formal, but who am I to say?

State trooper dating Cuomo’s daughter is transferred to the Canadian border

“He was transferred to keep him away from the daughter because the governor didn’t like whatever they were doing,” a source familiar with the situation said.

Pfeiffer wasn’t found to have committed misconduct and his transfer to a state police station in Plattsburgh — about 160 miles north of the Capitol, and about 25 miles south of the Canadian border — didn’t go on his record as official discipline, sources said.

But records show that Pfeiffer bought a house in Saratoga Springs, near Albany, in 2018 and the dramatic change in his commute is considered a type of informal punishment that cops call “highway therapy,” sources said.

Cuomo “is limited in how much he can screw with him, so highway therapy is one of his few options,” a source said.

Not much of a story, but I found it amusing because it brought to mind a bit of family lore. The details as I remember them — and my siblings are free to correct me — are about as follows:

When my mother was very young — 16? 17? — she fled her mother’s Beverly Hills home and eloped with some young man and, duly married, camped out with him on the Monterey Peninsula, which in those days was , according to Mother, “covered with wildflowers”, not houses. Grandmother Leatrice was confounded by this act of defiance and, worse, had no idea where her wayward daughter had fled to. So, former movie star that she was, she picked up the phone, called her friend the Governor and asked his help. State troopers were dispatched to scour the state, found the couple, and escorted the young man to the nearest bus stop, informing him that he was to keep going east until he’d crossed the state border, and to not come back, ever.

Mother returned home, the marriage was annulled, and when shortly afterwards we entered the war, she fled again and joined the army. Until today, I’d thought that governors no longer had the power to do things like that, but obviously I was wrong.

Okay, not gonna happen, but what if ....

I have to what?!! I have to what????

Hillary is now a member of the Electoral College from New York.

The odds of New York going Trump are exactly the same as Hillary being sworn in as President this coming January 20th, or all the air suddenly disappearing from your living room, but if, somehow it happened, and the Hildabeast were required to cast a vote for him, oooooh, oooooh, oooooh! Such fun.

Pending on Parsonage

48 Parsonage Road, $5.995 (started at $6.5 May 2020) is reported pending.. The seller paid $5.5 for it in 2016 (and the owner bought it new for $6 million for it in 2009, on an original 2008 price of $7.850 — even negotiating $1.850 from the builder’s price may not avoid the builder’s premium entirely, it seems).

Perfectly decent house but don’t houses in theis general range all tend to look about the same? Pick your preferred price and location and at that point, one seems as good, or as bad, as the others.

That'll happen when the cops have been ordered to stand down

“That’s not looting, that’s reparations”

With no police protection, Philadelphia store owners have resorted to begging the looters to leave them alone.

Philadelphia businesses put up signs begging for looters to leave them alone as thieves ran rampant for the third night amid unrest over the police shooting death of a 27-year-old black man.

“We work here and live here,” a large sign read on a boarded-up storefront in a devastated area of the City of Brotherly Love, photos show.

“It’s been looted already,” another store said on its boards, explaining that the Cambridge Beauty Supply store was family-run and had been in the area for 30 years.

It’s not entirely accurate to say that the police have been ordered to disperse, rather than arrest looters, though rank and file and police commanders say they have, but if the police chief claims there have been 91 arrests so far, out of thousands of rioting looters, that’s not much of a deterrence.

The tragic irony of this is that it’s local, black store owners who are being wiped out. Some black lives matter, but not all of them, apparently, and certainly not shopkeepers. “If you’re not rioting, you ain’t black”, to quote a famous politician.

This must have come as a bit of a disappointment

14 Hycliff Road, priced at $3.999 million and pending since July, has sold for $3.825. The owners bought it new in 2005 for $5.8, put in a lot of improvements, and have been trying to sell it, off-and-on, since 2013, when they priced it at $7.8.

The lesson here is never to buy new unless you’re prepared to write off the builder premium. Usually, that premium isn’t as stiff as that paid here, but it can still sting.

Bidding war in Riverside?

I haven’t contacted listing agent Ann Simpson to confirm, but I see that she’s reported a contract for 45 Lake Drive South just seven days after it was put on the market at $2.195 million. Given the lag time between an accepted offer and final contracts, it seems likely that the offer came on the first or second day. And given the lack of inventory in this price range in Riverside, I’d be surprised if that offer wasn’t one of several.

Lake Avenue South is a very, very nice street and deservedly popular. It doesn’t appear that these owners did much to change this 1927 house after they bought it in 2010 for $1.995, and the asking price reflects that, but I suspect it doesn’t matter. The house is ready for a thorough renovation, and the street should support whatever new money is put into such a project.

And a contract in Riverside

132 Lockwood Road, $4.395 million, gone in 41 days. Like Havemeyer, this section of Lockwood hasn’t been known for hosting many four-million-plus sale, but that’s changing, obviously.

I don’t know for certain, but this may well have been custom-built, though if so, the listing agent doesn’t mention it — maybe the spec house in Havemeyer laid claim to that term first. In any event. the current owners bought the lot in February 2017 (for $1.6 million) and built this house that same year. This is the first time it’s appeared on the market since, so ….