We're back, and so is this old post

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A friend reminded me of this tale I recounted a few years ago, and I think it’s still relevant to these times and this day.

A Christmas story

December 27, 2017Chris Fountain

News that Greenwich's Christmas tree recycling program has begun sparked a memory from some years back.

On Thanksgiving Day, 2011, while I was preparing the holiday feast in my mother's kitchen, I heard a crash from her office. I rushed in and discovered that she'd suffered a massive stroke. This vibrant, wonderful, 88-year-old woman who was even then getting straight As at Norwalk Community College, never regained her ability to speak, and barely recognized her children. So it was a bad Thanksgiving, and Christmas a month later wasn't going to be much better.

My mother was beloved by her grandchildren and one of them, my niece Naomi, came east from California to see her, arriving the morning of Christmas Eve with her little boy Asher. Asher's father, a former Marine (sniper, then JPL engineer), had drowned before Asher was born, so he was being raised by his widowed mother. Naomi is a fantastic mother, but there's a undercurrent of sadness in the story of a young widow, a young boy, and no father. Couple that with "Mun-Mun"  in the hospital, and things weren't awfully cheery in the Fountain home.

So that's the set up; here's the point: We hadn't bothered decorating my mother's house — why bother? — and Asher was distraught when he arrived to find that there was no Christmas tree. "Distraught" is perhaps too mild a term — he was devastated. It was then about 3:30, Christmas Eve, and the chances of finding a tree vendor in Greenwich still open struck me as nil, but I loaded Asher in the car and, warning him of our unlikely prospects, we set out to find a tree. 

Sure enough, nothing. The Jerombeck Brothers' stand across from St. Catherine's had shut down for the season and so, too, had every other spot we tried on the Post Road. It was getting dark by now, but I had a sudden thought, which I passed on to Asher: the town had a a space at Tod's Point for residents to drop off their trees for recycling after Christmas. Maybe, I suggested, some family had celebrated early before heading off to the Caribbean, or a ski vacation, and left a tree behind before they left. The odds were very much against us, I cautioned, maybe 100-0, but why not try? 

It was almost dark by this time, and we arrived at Tod's just a few minutes before it closed. We drove to the collection point and discovered only one, solitary tree, but it was perfectly shaped, in prime condition, and exactly the right height to fit my mother's low-ceilinged living room. I mumbled something to Asher about there being a God after all, we loaded up the tree and returned to his great-grandmother's house. His uncles and cousins showed up, a fire was lit, the ornaments retrieved from the attic, and a great Christmas Eve was achieved after all.

So that's my Christmas story. I hope all of you have similar memories to draw on in times of sadness and, for that matter, joy. And, if a reader out there remembers dropping off a tree in 2011 at the Point the day before Christmas, know that you did, even unknowingly, a mitzvah, and you might want to consider whether we're not all part of some higher plan.

I know I do.

So we're back

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Geeze, so much happened the past few days, which I’ll get to. But let’s start off with a trivial, but oddly accurate observation about the dispiriting outpouring of supporst for the murder of any business executive who offends the mob:

The stench

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Mammoth spending bill has clause that would let Congress block subpoenas for House data, "potentially preventing any investigation into the J6 Committee"

If you haven't heard, Congress is trying to pass a ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED PAGE omnibus bill. A typical tactic of politicians for decades has been to attach a whole bunch of hidden clauses into a massive-yet-critical spending bill that no one can physically read and process in its entirety.

Thanks to Elon Musk's X, there's a place for people to read the bill together and find things that are hidden (X's AI, Grok, will also be able to read and summarize these bills in the future).

Speaking of Elon, here is his reaction:

AND:

And off topic, but worth mentioning:

Maybe she can replace Tiffany Henyard as Mayor of Henyard IL *

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NYPD’s $400K-a-year top earner Quathisha Epps is retiring early as astronomical overtime pay is investigated: sources

The NYPD’s highest-paid employee — who shoveled in more than $400,000 last year — filed for retirement this week amid an internal affairs probe into her astronomical overtime, The Post has learned.

Lt. Quathisha Epps will retire just shy of 20 years with the department, sources said — an early exit that will impact her pension and cost her a $12,000-a-year supplement for cops who reach the two-decade mark.

Leaving money on the table is seemingly uncharacteristic for Epps, who raised eyebrows by pulling in roughly $204,000 in overtime last year for her administrative job in NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey’s office, payroll records show.

Sources told The Post that Epps’ whopping overtime was capped after The Post’s exclusive report last month on her pay. She was also told she’d be put back on patrol — an apparently unappetizing prospect after her cushy desk job, according to the sources.

“There is no way she was going to go out on patrol,” one source told The Post.

Epps, 51, also faced an internal affairs investigation into her overtime, sources said.

Records showed that last year she worked nearly 1,627 hours of overtime on top of her regular shift, or an average of roughly 74 hours a week.

The overtime, plus her $164,477 base salary, pushed Epps’ total compensation past $400,000 — and made her the highest-paid NYPD employee.

By comparison, her boss, Maddrey, made roughly $292,000 the same year, records show.

Epps’ eye-watering overtime rankled many rank-and-file cops.

“What administrative work requires you to stay there 115 to 120 hours every f–king month to apply that type of money?” one Bronx cop griped to The Post last month.

*Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of Dolton, Illinois, is embroiled in multiple controversies, including allegations of corruption, misuse of taxpayer funds, and retaliating against political opponents. Her administration has faced scrutiny for excessive spending and has been the subject of a federal investigation request by village trustees.

Newsnationnow.com

Disinformation, corporate style

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O corse, that’s just sampling. You can add the “Russian disinformation, so we won’t cover it” and the biggest whopper of them all, Joe Biden is perfectly fit to serve as president for not one, but two terms, which is only now, post-election, being confessed to have been entirely false.

Democrats Finally Admit the Obvious About Joe Biden, and It Gets More Shameless From There

Bonchie:

TO STATE THE OBVIOUS — From Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs’ NYT assessment of President JOE BIDEN’s final chapter: “Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day. Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria’s rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years.”

The level of shamelessness it takes to title that blurb with "To State the Obvious" is unquantifiable. I spent so many years chronicling Biden's undeniably deteriorating mental and physical state here at RedState that I filed stories under the tag "senile." You know who did deny his condition, though? Politico, The New York Times, Peter Baker, Karine Jean-Pierre, and essentially every other living, breathing Democrat. 

The peak of their disinformation campaign was no doubt the "cheap fakes" saga. Following an especially disturbing mid-2024 performance in France in which Joe Biden had to be led around and corrected by world leaders, including Italia's Giorgia Meloni, the press and White House claimed the videos were being altered, dubbing them "cheap fakes." NBC News proclaimed, "Misleading GOP videos of Biden are going viral. The fact-checks have trouble keeping up."

It was Biden's big on-stage freeze-up at a Los Angeles fundraiser in late June that caused the White House to pick up the talking point, though. Karine Jean-Pierre would go on to quote a denial from Barack Obama, who was hosting the event, as evidence conservatives were using "cheap fakes." Notably, a month later, one of Obama's aides admitted that Biden was so disoriented that night that the former president himself was "shaken." 

"Cheap fakes," indeed.

I suppose it's better that they spend their time doing this sort of thing than working to destroy our economy, our culture, and our country (Bad link before: fixed)

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Finger on the Pulse: Amy Klobuchar Passes Vital Legislation to Make the Bald Eagle Our National Bird

Amy Curtis:

This writer will make an embarrassing confession: she never knew the bald eagle wasn't the official national bird until today (more on that in a second. Yeah, she knows about how Benjamin Franklin proposed making the turkey the national bird [a myth — didn’t happen — Ed] , but she had always just assumed whatever the government needed to do to make the bald eagle our mascot was done ages ago.

Guess not.

On one hand, this writer is fine with Congress passing stupid bills like this. It shouldn't spend any tax money, and it's not some nanny state policy that attempts to run her life.

On the other hand, if this is what Congress is doing, maybe they need to spend even less time in D.C.

One commenter added “reader context”:

The commenter goes on to ask “What else is in that bill?” showing a cynical distrust of of our leaders. Sad.

(You can find a history of the 1784 designation of the eagle as our national bird and the reaffirmation of that resolution on August 26 1916 here.)