Boy, those Russians are EVERYWHERE!

Remember, remember the 3rd of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot. And Russian disinformation, I tell you, disinformation!!! Aaaaghhh!

Democrat Congressman vouches for Bobulinski’s character

Democratic congressman Ro Khanna is vouching for the character of Tony Bobulinski, the military veteran and former business associate of Hunter Biden who has taken center stage in the final weeks of the election.

In a Friday email Khanna sent to Bobulinski, the California Democrat writes that he has pushed back against attempts to discredit Bobulinski by both the media and his Democratic colleagues. "I did give an on the record statement to The NY Times that I know you, you have always acted honorably with me, and you and other family members supported me," Khanna wrote, adding that he has also "made it clear that I do not think you are a Russian agent."

Khanna, who has received over $21,000 in political contributions from Bobulinski during his political career, also said in the email that he has told others that Bobulinski has talked about "putting country over party" in their past conversations.

You want proof that this Congressman is just another Commie rat? I’ll give you proof! Here!

Khanna, who represents California’s 17th district, was an official in the Obama administration and a co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I., Vt.) presidential campaign.

A tool of Obama and Bernie! Quick, Schiff, call Senator McCarthy — we got ‘em now.

So CNN could refuse to air them again?

Two comedians, one of whom intends it

Brian Stelter is worried that Trump is off campaigning instead of giving daily Kung Flu briefings to reporters



Besides the difficulties this would cause reporters who are already busy investigating the Biden tapes — where would they find the time or the resources to do both stories justice? — there’s this problem:

CNN began airing less and less of the initial task force briefings this past spring after "CNN Tonight" anchor Don Lemon called on the network to not air them live. After Lemon sent his message, the network would often avoid carrying remarks by the president, instead cutting in to hear from medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.

Even after the White House temporarily revived the briefings in July, CNN chose to skip the president's remarks. Other times, the networks would skip the briefing altogether. 

"CNN literally stopped showing them as soon as Trump started to talk. Shut all the way up, man," Washington Examiner social media producer Claude Thompson told Stelter. 

"And if he were doing it, CNN would decide not to run them," RedState senior editor Joe Cunningham shot back. 

"Even if he did, how would the CNN viewers know?" journalist Tatjana Pasalic quipped.

What’s a quip to some is the sad truth to others.

Another story you won't see in the mainstream press

Fortunately, we still have the Paper of Record to expose these frauds

Jack Dorsey hires homeless man off the streets of San Francisco to fill in for him at hearings

Quirky exterior, but a very cool house

20 W. End Avenue, Old Greenwich, is new to the market today at $4.295 million. That’s a big price tag, but the location: easy, easy walk to the Village, train, and school, and the quality of build make it very special. I loved it when it was newly built in 2014, and it sold relatively quickly — 156 days, for $3.825, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t fetch that sort of number again.

It’s certainly not traditional, but to this jaded eye, that’s a feature, not a bug.

I believe there used to be a path through the spartina to Old Greenwich School (photo, rear) — not sure if it’s still there, but any 8-year-old with a machete could fix that in a jiffy.

If so, the sound of liberals' heads exploding will be heard throughout the land

And may hers be the first to go

M. Todd Henderson. Professor, University of Chicago Law School: Court-Packing is Unconstitutional

Excerpts:

History strongly supports maintaining the Court's current size. The number of justices has changed on occasion. Originally, the Court had six justices. It grew to seven and eventually 10, before settling back to nine by the end of the Civil War era. As Princeton University's Keith Whittington has described in these pages, the change in the number of justices was largely a matter of accommodating the needs of a growing nation—not the political whims of Congress.

The justices were originally chosen from various regions of the country and had an obligation to travel around their region hearing cases in lower courts, a practice known as "riding circuit." As the nation expanded, so did the Court. The judicial branch lobbied for years for an expansion, given the increased workload and burden of riding circuit in the expanding American West. When justices had to travel by carriage throughout the land, this expansion made sense. Expanding the Court was meant to improve the function of the judiciary—not undermine it.

The United States is 10 times bigger now than it was when the Court was fixed at nine members, but justices no longer ride circuit. And the number of cases it hears are easily manageable by its current composition. In any event, Democrats today are not talking about expanding the Court because of population growth, but packing it because they are upset with its political composition and the way in which the Senate treated Judge Merrick Garland in 2016. Even if you believe Garland was mistreated and Barrett's confirmation was a hypocritical act, the intent to undo these acts of politics by packing the Court is completely out of bounds.

Intent matters, as the courts have recently held in several recent cases in which they declared federal policies unconstitutional based on the alleged bad intent divined from President Trump's tweets or other statements. The Democrats' intent is to pack the Court for political reasons, plain and simple. This would be unprecedented in our history. And, the intent to destroy the third branch—the one that ensures the other two comply with the Constitution—is sufficient to find it illegal.

The size of the Court has, of course, previously been a political football at times. Upset about President Andrew Johnson's attempt to undo Reconstruction in the period after the Civil War, Republicans in Congress brought the number of justices down to seven so that Johnson wouldn't have a chance to make additional appointments. As soon as Johnson left office, congressional Republicans increased the number of justices back to nine. It has been nine ever since.

This episode is a terrible precedent for Democrats' plans to pack the Court. Following this approach would lead to a tit-for-tat cycle that might be difficult to break. Democrats increase the size of the Court; then, when Republicans are in charge, as they will be at some point, they retaliate. The Court's rulings—whether to protect gay marriage or property rights—would then mean nothing beyond the term of the president and Congress in power at any given time. This is a full-frontal assault on the rule of law, which the Constitution is designed to establish and secure.

The last time Democrats tried to pack the Court for political reasons, it was widely rejected as at odds with the Constitution. In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed adding justices after the Court had invalidated some of his New Deal legislation. The Senate Judiciary Committee declared that it was a "needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle." After reviewing the text, structure and history of the Constitution, it declared any proposed increase in the size of the Court for political reasons to be flatly unconstitutional. It concluded that "[The packing plan's] ultimate operation would be to make this Government one of men rather than one of law, and its practical operation would be to make the Constitution what the executive or legislative branches of the Government choose to say it is—an interpretation to be changed with each change of administration."

A lesson in home improvements: enjoy them, but don't expect to recover their cost

The owners of 82 Cat Rock Road paid $3.3 million for it when it was new in 2018 and placed it back on the market earlier this year at $4.1. Today they dropped the price to $3.995. That’s unlikely to do the trick, assuming that “the trick” is to sell it.

According to its listing, the owners have put “more than $500,000 in improvements since purchase”, but so what? Looking over the list of what’s been done, the money was spent mostly on upgraded light fixtures, finishing closets, reconfiguring the driveway, and planting trees. I’m sure that’s all very nice, and a potential buyer will undoubtedly appreciate the effort, but he won’t pay for them — buyers expect these things. It’s like a new roof, or a new furnace, or replaced a/c condensers: expensive, yes, but to buyers, those are expenditures properly belonging to the owner and not to them.

Even conceding a return of the costs of these “improvements” — and the buyers won’t — how does $500,000 and $3.3 add up to $4.1 or even, as of today, $3.995? I see a $3.3 in this home’s future.

The improvement list is here. One thing you won’t see is a pool, even though there’s a town-approved site for one. I don’t like pools, personally, but if I were to spend $500,000 on improvements, I’d buy fewer trees or go cheap on the lampshades, and at least dip a toe in the water.

Related to the previous post

First three DUCK DUCK GO SEARCH RESULTS FOR “FBI INVESTIGATING HUNTER BIDEN” 2:59 pM October 30 2020

Hunter Biden under active investigation by the FBI, Doj confirms

That’s a report from Pajama Media; you’ll also find the story in the National Review, The Daily Mail, and the NY Post. You will not find any mention of it in the NYT, the Washington Post, or any of the big three broadcasters.

Millions of Americans don't know this, and never will

Daily Caller hired a highly-credentialed cyber expert to examine Hunter’s hard drive and emails, and you’ll never guess what happened next!

An email Hunter Biden received in April 2015 from a Burisma executive discussing an introduction to then-Vice President Joe Biden, which lies at the heart of a New York Post investigation, is unquestionably authentic, a cybersecurity expert told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.

The DCNF obtained a full copy of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday. The DCNF provided Robert Graham, the founder of the cybersecurity firm Errata Security, with a copy of the email and its metadata for forensic analysis.

Graham, who has been cited as a cybersecurity expert in The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Wired, Engadget and other news and technology outlets, told the DCNF that he used a cryptographic signature found in the email’s metadata to validate that Vadym Pozharsky, an advisor to Burisma’s board of directors, emailed Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015.

In the email, Pozharsky thanked Hunter Biden for “inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.”

Graham used the DKIM signature within the email to verify with a private key on Google’s servers that the sender, recipient, subject, date and body of the message that the DCNF obtained from Giuliani were unchanged from when the email was originally sent in April 2015. (RELATED: Hunter Biden Emails Could Be ‘Absolutely Verified’ If Rudy Giuliani Released The Metadata, Expert Says)

Graham said the only way the email could have been faked is if someone hacked into Google’s servers, found the private key and used it to reverse engineer the email’s DKIM signature.

Email metadata on its own does not provide any indication of whether hacking had anything to with the email’s release, Graham noted.

“Of course, committing criminal hacking doesn’t make true information any less true, so no matter how illegitimately they gathered emails, the contents are provably legitimate,” Graham said.

If nothing else good comes out of this election, the credibility of our country’s mainstream media, already hovering near zero, will be finally be driven to oblivion. The talking fools and the wretched Democrat operatives posing as journalists will stick around, but only as laughable reminders of what once was a (wrongly) trusted institution.

I don't think prices in our northwest have improved all that much since 2014

332 Riversville Road, an 1840 Victorian on 0.7 acre in the 4-acre zone, has cut its price from $2.7 million to $2.430. Well, maybe.

The house was on the market for two years between 2012 and 2014, starting at $2.495 and ending at $1.895, without success. Whatever inspired the owner to try $2.7 this time was probably not the best idea she’s ever had, and even the new price may be insufficient; what wouldn’t sell for $1.895 in 2014 isn’t likely to sell for $535,000 more this time.

That’s just me being a pessimistic old curmudgeon, of course, and I may well be overestimating the negatives of a grossly undersized lot and a location under and in the shadow of the Merritt Parkway — the latter at least allows for a claim that the house is convenient to transportation, even if access to that transportation requires clambering up the bank and hitching a ride. We’ll see.

It’s got the Zebra/Orange combo going for it at least

Oh, dear

A 12’ X 8’ kitchen is not a seller’s friend

Heyyy, how’d that pesky zebra get upstairs?

Plowed under

7 Plow Lane has sold for $3.6 million; its builder had sought $4.988 for full-year back in 2017 before giving up and bringing it back this May at $3.995. I would attribute its sale now less to the China Flu market and more to simply adjusting its price to fit reality.

New houses on Plow Lane have had a dismal performance record over the past 15 years. 11 Plow Lane sold new in 2006 for $4.775,018, then resold for $3.250 in 2017 and again this past June for $3.224 — no rebound so far.

6 Plow Lane sold, new, for $5.155 in 2017. I was asked for a price opinion on it last year and I came up with a figure of $3.5. So far the owner remains in place, but unless things change radically, I don’t see that original price resurfacing, for a long time.

There are nice houses here, but the lots were carved out of ledge and so they have limited utility. I’d say other mean things about the street, but I think the market has already spoken, eloquently.