And another one bites the dust (UPDATED)

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make sure he doesn’t take any office stationery with him

Good Riddance: Acting National Archives Chief Retires With Emo Farewell Letter to Remaining Staff

… One of the federal entity's top leaders made his fond farewell on Friday, with what can only be described as an emo letter to the rest of the staff. CNN's headline, and the lede (below), will give you a hint on exactly where this is heading:

White House forcing out top leadership at National Archives in major shakeup

The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.

…

“…. [It] was not just the Biden WH that took part of this nefarious plot: The National Archives absolutely played a role in facilitating the corruption-riddled FBI's early morning incursion on the home of a former president of the United States--seeking a linchpin on which to hang a damning bit of lawfare against Trump, the leading political opponent in the then-ongoing presidential race.

UPDATE. Still more good news: Rats are fleeing the Good Ships NIH and CDC.

…. Lauer was a COVID crackdown enthusiast from the start — a company man through and through. His will surely be missed by his also-soon-to-be-gone former colleagues and handful of suburban wine moms who put Fauci shrines on their lawns, but by no one else.

Lauer was NIH, but the story keeps getting better:

…[I]n a story that will surely tug at your heartstrings, over at the CDC — which, if it’s possible, is even more diseased than NIH — panic has set in among staff while moral has “plummeted.”

Via NPR:

Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are on edge this week, as rumors of job cuts circulate. Employees are bracing for a significant reduction in the work force that appears to be targeting those with the fewest worker protections…

CDC staff who've gone through other administration changes say the transition has been unlike anything they've experienced before, with "fewer meetings, fewer requests for information," and little attempt to understand how things work…

"It is extremely difficult and traumatizing for federal staff to see reporting on this as if it is doable and legal," the former employee who requested anonymity told NPR.

"The CDC staff I know and have worked with for more than 25 years are dedicated public servants and don't deserve to be mistreated in this way."

By their posts shall ye know them (Updated)

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“that’s why nobody watches CNN anymore because they have no credibility.” Donald J. Trump

CNN's Kaitlan Collins boosts Luigi Mangione's legal defense fund—deletes post after backlash

"Luigi Mangione's legal defense team has launched a new website today."

Related?

Here is XGrok’s recital of the “career” of Mr.Mangione, and “his current legal situation”:

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, David Strom offers a good take on the story.

Kaitlan Collins, White House Correspondent for CNN, sent out a tweet promoting the defense fund for Luigi Mangione, the assassin who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. 

The new defense fund was announced in a "Valentine's Day Message" posted by his defense team on a new website. 

…. Collins' tweet was startling because, first of all, she is White House Correspondent and hence has nothing to do with covering the case; secondly, because it sure looked like a call to go to the site and perhaps donate; and third, one of Collins' colleagues--a CNN analyst--will be a direct beneficiary because she is on the defense team. 

Mangione is a cold-blooded killer but has become a folk hero on the left. There is no question that he is the killer--his manifesto makes clear that he is--and his legal team, while doing their job, is stoking the "hero" narrative rather than fighting on purely legal terms. It certainly isn't Collins' job to jump on that bandwagon.

…. There is something dark and violent at the heart of modern liberal politics. It celebrates death. Abortion, assisted suicide, sterilizing and mutilating children, population control/antinatalism, and of course political murder in this case and many others. 

Remember CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle? A violent occupation of one of America's great cities that the Mayor called the "Summer of Love." Revolutionary violence is in their DNA. 

Massachusetts protects child rapists, letting them go and hiding them from ICE as long as they are illegal aliens. It is child sacrifice. 

This isn't an American phenomenon. Great Britain has a stunning case right now, in which a man burned a Koran and was stabbed by a Muslim extremist. The man who burned the Koran was remanded to prison, while the man who knifed him was let out on bail. Burning a Koran is more offensive to the authorities than stabbing that man. 

So I shouldn't be surprised that Collins didn't even expect pushback for her promoting Mangione's defense fund. It seems perfectly normal in her world, where you can kill people as long as you really don't like them for the "right" reasons. 

I wonder, if somebody shot Elon Musk, whether she would do the same for his murderer?

When two themes combine

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Transgender “woman” illegal alien rapes 14-year-old boy in NYC park bathroom

A migrant transgender woman wanted by federal immigration officials allegedly stalked and raped a boy in Manhattan this week, The Post has learned.

Nicol Suarez allegedly followed the 14-year-old into the bathroom of a bodega across the street from Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem Tuesday and attacked him, police and sources said.

The boy then left the bathroom and flagged down witnesses, who alerted police, the sources said.

Suarez, 30, who is originally from Colombia, was arrested nearby the following day and charged with first-degree rape.

Suarez was wanted in New Jersey and Massachusetts at the time, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had a detainer on her, a law enforcement source said.

It’s all Trump’s fault of course: if he hadn’t cut off the funds so desperately needed by our welfare groups to provide genital removal for men, this fellow couldn’t have raped his victim.

I don't watch TV, but from reading Internet sites and a few cautious conversations with liberal friends (the handful I still have), I gather none of this is being reported in the legacy media

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now we know where the writers of raiders of the lost ark got their inspiration

'Wasteful and dangerous': DOGE's top five most shocking revelations

Since its launch, Elon Musk's DOGE has uncovered billions in wasteful spending across the federal government

First of the five:

Musk reveals ‘Iron Mountain’ mine nightmare

Musk revealed this week that DOGE is investigating a limestone mine in Pennsylvania where federal employee retirements are processed manually. 

"Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months," Musk announced on X. 

ELON MUSK DESCRIBES LIMESTONE MINE USED FOR PROCESSING FEDERAL WORKERS' RETIREMENT PAPERS: ‘LIKE A TIME WARP’

Musk said only 10,000 federal employees can retire a month because it takes so long to process the paperwork and sort through the millions of manila envelopes. He described the "Iron Mountain" mine as a "time warp" slowing down a completely manual federal retirement process. 

"The limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move, determines how many people can retire from the federal government. The elevator breaks down sometimes, and then nobody can retire. Doesn't that sound crazy?" Musk told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. 

Thomas Jefferson said of federal bureaucrats, “Few die, and none retire”. Nothing’s changed; in fact, this system was designed to make sure that it didn’t.

Paging JD

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Their government, at least, seems to be changing its mind — a little

Syrian asylum seeker arrested after boy, 14, killed and four injured in Austria stabbing

Two men suffer serious injuries, while a further two sustain less serious wounds in city of Villach

A 14-year-old boy has been killed and four other people injured in a knife attack in a southern Austrian city on Saturday, with police arresting a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker.

“A man randomly attacked passers-by with a knife,” Rainer Dionisio, a police spokesman, told the AFP news agency of the incident in Villach. “One victim, a 14-year-old boy, died.”

Two men suffered serious injuries, while another two men sustained less serious wounds. The oldest victim of the attack is a 32-year-old, police said.

The incident happened in the centre of the city, the capital of the Carinthia province, at just before 4pm. A food delivery rider saw the attack and rammed his vehicle into the attacker, who was arrested “right after the attack”, according to Mr Dionisio.

The arrested man is a Syrian asylum seeker with a valid residence permit and without a criminal record, according to preliminary information, said Mr Dionisio. Pictures of the arrest appeared to show him smiling as police drew their weapons.

The attack comes just two days after a car-ramming attack in the city of Munich, in neighbouring Germany. A two-year-old girl and her mother died on Saturday from injuries suffered in the attack, which left 37 others injured.

Worried much?

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One of the Top Google Searches in DC Since Team Trump Arrived Says It ALL

Just how widespread is the freakout in Washington, DC? A Rasmussen pollster has some Google search data that speaks volumes: 

The big concern on the Left was perhaps best summed up by Rep. Maxine Waters when she was heard saying the following: 

"We don't know what all they have on us."

More on Hotsy

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Mention of the new building proposed for Old Greenwich brought a discussion in the comments of “Hotsy” of Garden Catering and his famous Hotsy breakfast sandwich, so I went looking for his history, and found this remembrance of the man by Greenwich Time’s Neil Vigdor on the occasion of Hotsy’s passing, at 91-years-old. Excerpts:

Remembering Hotsy: The chili loses its spice

By Neil VigdorNov 21, 2012

GREENWICH -- Chili ran through Frank Bertino's veins like molten lava.

His recipe for the comfort food is sacrosanct.

But it's missing a key ingredient: Hotsy.

Known as "Hotsy" to his legion of admirers, from modern-day Garden Catering to the everyman haunt once known as The Oasis that he owned with his late brothers, Bertino died of natural causes Tuesday night at Greenwich Hospital, according to his family. He was 91.

His friends remembered the longtime Cos Cob resident and Purple Heart recipient for his sweat equity in the kitchen, gregarious demeanor, love of family, military valor and athletic prowess as a youngster, from the boxing ring to the golf course.

And his chili.

"He just made the best damn chili," said Stanley Thal, a longtime member and former president of the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department in Old Greenwich. "He put chili in everything. You had it with your eggs, your soup, your breakfast sandwich."

The firehouse is a block away from Garden Catering, where Bertino defied his age and worked the graveyard shift for most of his 22 years at the popular takeout place, the final chapter of six decades in the food business.

…

Along with his later brothers, Edward and Paul Bertino, the man known as Hotsy for many years owned The Oasis, a food magnet for blue-collar types located on West Putnam Avenue.

"As a young landscaper, we'd go in there for lunch," Selectman David Theis said. "I have never seen anybody make a cup of coffee faster than he did. It was like he had three hands. He was truly a remarkable man in that sense. He was a local legend."

Bertino was the cousin of state Rep. Alfred Camillo, R-151st District.

"He was what Greenwich used to be," Camillo said. "It was all mom-and-pop stores. Hotsy came to symbolize that."

Born July 11, 1921, in South Norwalk, Hotsy told Greenwich Time in a 2007 interview that he acquired his nickname from a "quick temper" as a teen. He later fought in amateur boxing matches in Rye, N.Y., under the moniker "Kid Hotsy."

After returning from World War II, he joined his brothers at Pat's Hubba Hubba on West Putnam Avenue in 1946. He later ran a concession stand at the Griffith E. Harris Golf Course from 1984 to 1988, before "retiring."

The only conservative media outlet in Maine is unsympathetic to this poor man: the rest of the press, including the Boston Globe, was much kinder.

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“Welcome to Maine; come for a visit, stay for a lifetime”

Maine Media’s Poster Child for Welfare Programs Arrested in Major State Police Fentanyl Ring Bust

When homeless encampments flourished throughout Maine’s largest city in 2023 and 2024, Maine’s newspaper reporters were eager to tell the sad story of down-on-their-luck Mainers who had been failed by the state’s generous social services.

In dozens of instances, they turned to one man—46-year-old Bruce Cavallaro—the quasi-mayor of whatever homeless camp the reporters were covering on any given day.

Tragically for Maine’s newspaper reporters, their favorite spokesperson for “Mainers experiencing homelessness” was arrested Thursday as part of a high-risk search warrant executed on the apartment unit that Maine State Police say had been transformed into the center of a narcotics trafficking ring.

The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency (MDEA) announced Wednesday the arrest of seven people, including media darling Cavallarro, connected to a suspected drug operation in apartment 402 of 658 Congress St in Portland. Police say they had been investigating the apartment for months due to reports of drug trafficking, threatening displays with weapons and disorderly conduct.

Prior to getting lugged for his role in the narcotics peddling conspiracy, Cavallaro received extensive coverage in Maine’s media outlets for living in Portland’s large homeless encampments.

Indeed, his ubiquity in photographs published by the Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Lewiston Sun Journal, Maine Public, and even the Boston Globe is such a highly unusual coincidence that one has to wonder whether Cavallaro secretly has a highly paid press agent.

In nearly every story covering Cavallaro, the legacy media outlets portrayed the now-incarcerated would-be squatter as a victim of the city’s policy of clearing the trash- and needle-filled campsites over the past two years.

Cavallaro’s friends in the Maine media never got the memo that he somehow found his way into more stable housing at 658 Congress St, an apartment building whose owner remains unclear.

But according to the MDEA, Cavallaro was the man renting the apartment around which the major narcotics investigation revolved. They said that the landlord had evicted Cavallaro, but he refused to leave.

Cavallaro was among the seven arrested after a search of the apartment by police on Wednesday resulted in the seizure of fentanyl, methamphetamine, crack cocaine and other drug paraphernalia.

…. Before this bad turn of luck, Cavallaro received glowing coverage, was included in photoshoots and frequently quoted in news articles while he was living outside in the city’s homeless encampments, and was taken on several occasions to be a spokesperson for the opposition to the city’s policy of “sweeping” the camps.

Portland saw several large homeless encampments sprout up in various locations throughout the city, with the camps reaching their greatest size in the summer, fall and winter of 2023 into 2024.

Particularly large encampments were at the Marginal Way Park-and-Ride, the Fore River Parkway and under the Casco Bay Bridge at Harborview Park.

Those encampments, which at their peak consisted of well over 75 tents each and were littered with needles, garbage and a large number of [stolen _ ED] bikes, were eventually cleared one-by-one by the city, amid protests from the Maine Democratic Socialists of America and other activist groups.

Stories featuring Bruce include:

Portland Press Herald:

Bangor Daily News:

Boston Globe:

NewsCenter Maine:

Maine Public:

….. According to public records obtained by the Maine Wire in 2023, Portland had spent 50 times more per person on General Assistance welfare than other Maine cities and consumed 73 percent of all GA spending.

A spokesperson for the city declined to confirm whether Cavallaro was a beneficiary of the city’s robust welfare programs, citing privacy protections.

Sounds reasonable to me (UPDATED and BUMPED)

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189 Sound Beach Avenue

Developer wants to raze Old Greenwich building to construct smaller office space on site

The old structure at 189 Sound Beach Ave., next door to the Rummage Room resale shop, was built in 1910, and most recently housed a real estate office and a contracting business. {SP Palmer & Sons Plumbing — Ed]

The site was sold in 2024 for $1,700,000, according to the property tax filing. Now, new ownership, AP Realty Associates and A.M. Patel, are seeking permission from the Planning & Zoning Commission to demolish the old structure and rebuild at the site.

According to the architect working on the plans, the proposed new structure would aim to incorporate a traditional design to add to the historic character of Sound Beach Avenue.

"Our proposed design harkens back to the Federal and Victorian residential structures similar to those built between 1890 and 1910," stated architect Dinyar Wadia.

I can’t remember how many retailers have used the front building from the 50’s to date (and have no idea who was there prior to that), but there have been a lot of them, including Raveis, where I worked some time ago — the firm moved out, broken hearted, after the Mick and I came but then … er, departed); the building, if not its occupants, has always been undistinguished. Dinyar Wadia’s firm does excellent design and construction work, and has a great track record ; they don’t build schlock, so the developer’s description of what can be, unburdened by what has been, is an attractive one; the town should go for it.

Palmer’s former shop — once a stable?