A contract in Conyers

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polo just ain’t what it used to be up there in the back country

10 Hurlingham Drive, asking $8 million, 111 days on the market. Built in 1990 and comprising 13 acres and 12,456 sq. ft. interior space, it was looking bedraggled back in 2012 when it sold to these owners for $4.7 million ($6.587 in current dollars). From its pictures, it’s been remarkably rejuvenated and, hyperbole aside, the listing agent’s description confirms this:

[M]eticulously re-built with commercial-grade mechanicals, stunning high-end finishes used in all new kitchen and bathrooms. New plaster moldings, seamless new wood floors, exceptional cabinetry...all done with the finest craftsmanship and thoughtful design. Geo-thermal system installed for efficient cooling/heating w/ separate zones for each room. State-of-the-art water purification system, spray foam insulation, Crestron, heated driveway, and commercial sized generator.

Pre-2007, Conyers Farm homes commanded premium prices, but no longer. Even if this one fetches its full $8 million asking price, and I don’t think it will, $642 sq.ft. is about what the meanest Havemeyer hovel is selling for these days.

Sic transit Gloria Municipal Bonds

What can't go on, won't

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Biden Judge Invokes the Mythical Irrational and Imprudent Clause to Block Trump

Duane Patterson:

At some point, the Supreme Court is going to get pretty tired of this nonsense. Until then, we are living under a Constitutional framework that says the President gets to run all of Article II agencies and departments...unless a federal judge determines the actions of that president aren't cool and slaps down a nationwide injunction to stop it. It's no longer a functional democratic republic in which we're residing, but a kritocracy. [Okay, I had to look that one up: “… Under which sovereignty is taken away from the people and handed over to judges to decide who rules the citizenry.”] The country will not be able to withstand whim of law by partisan district court judges for very long. 

….
Late morning on Tuesday, Judge Loren Alikhan issued an indefinite injunction against the Trump administration, barring the elected leader of the Article II branch from freezing grants and loan payments as part of their effort to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.  

Did she find in her ruling that Trump's actions violated the Due Process Clause in the 5th and 14th Amendments, citing capricious and unfair treatments at the hands of DOGE or agency heads? Why no, no she did not. Did she invoke the Commerce Clause as a backdoor into finding that the President of the United States can't actually rein in agencies of which he is Constitutionally responsible? Nah. 

She invented the Irrational and Imprudent Clause. 

“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning. Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours,” US District Judge Loren AliKhan wrote as she issued a preliminary injunction against the administration. “The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.”

“Either way, Defendants’ actions were irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis,” she added.

…..

In case you're scrambling through your copy of the Constitution for the Irrational and Imprudent Clause, let me save you a little time and effort. It ain't there. 
….
Her decision will obviously be appealed, which will chew up time and resources. Judge Alikhan joins a list of Democratically-appointed district court judges that have thrown themselves into the breach of the running of the federal government by way of nationwide injunction. 

In the not-so-very-long run, this may all turn out to our benefit, because the Supreme Court is going to be forced to step in. Federal judges, unelected and appointed for life, are issuing nationwide injunctions constraining the actions of the administrative branch. In times past, these temporary injunctions were ordered on a case-specific basis, and their scope was almost always limited to the particular judicial district a judge was sitting in. No longer, and that’s a problem.

Patterson continues, with a list of just some of the nationwide injunctions issued by pro-Democrat judges in the past month:


Deborah L. Boardman  

  • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland  

  • Action: Issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on February 5, 2025, blocking Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.  

  • Details: Ruled in a lawsuit by civil rights groups and pregnant immigrants, citing the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent (Wong Kim Ark, 1898).

  • John C. Coughenour  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle)  

    • Action: Issued a temporary restraining order on January 23, 2025, followed by a nationwide preliminary injunction on February 6, 2025, against the birthright citizenship executive order.  

    • Details: Called the order “blatantly unconstitutional,” extending a prior 14-day block into an indefinite injunction pending litigation.

  • John J. McConnell Jr.  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island  

    • Action: Issued a temporary restraining order on January 31, 2025, and later reinforced it on February 10, 2025, blocking a Trump administration federal funding freeze.  

    • Details: Responded to a lawsuit by 22 Democratic-led states, ordering the restoration of frozen funding and accusing the administration of violating his initial order.

  • Amir Ali  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia  

    • Action: Blocked the Trump Administration freeze of all U.S. foreign aid. Has updated ordered ordering the Trump Administration to restore funding immediately.  

    • Details: Ruled after nonprofits and public health groups sued, noting the freeze interfered with congressional appropriations authority.

  • Paul A. Engelmayer  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York  

    • Action: Issued a preliminary injunction on February 8, 2025, blocking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records.  

    • Details: Acted on a lawsuit by 19 Democratic attorneys general challenging Trump’s administrative restructuring efforts.

  • Joseph N. Laplante  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire  

    • Action: Issued a preliminary injunction on February 10, 2025, blocking the birthright citizenship executive order.  

    • Details: Third judge to block this policy, promising a detailed ruling later, in a case tied to immigrant rights groups.

  • Kelley B. Hodge  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts  

    • Action: Issued an injunction on February 10, 2025, blocking cuts to health research grants.  

    • Details: Responded to a lawsuit by 22 Democratic attorneys general against Trump’s funding reduction plans.

  • Carl J. Nichols  

    • Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia  

    • Action: Issued a temporary restraining order on February 7, 2025, pausing a USAID downsizing deadline.  

    • Details: Blocked a midnight deadline that would have placed 2,200 USAID employees on administrative leave, part of Trump’s federal workforce reduction efforts.

Patterson:

With exceptions to the injunctions on birthright citizenship, which is a legitimate Constitutional matter that the Supreme Court will ultimately have to decide once and for all, every other judge in question here is substituting their own partisan position that the administrative state needs to be protected from the clutches of the President, who was elected to reduce and end the reign of terror by the very same administrative state. What is happening in the district courts are an extra-curricular Constitutional exercise, and it's not the first time we've seen shadow governance by judicial fiat from a friendly judge. But the sheer volume of judges fighting back at the Trump administration has to be giving the conservative majority on the Court a sense that they're going to have to throw the flag soon. 

Michael Moore is concerned

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Mr. Melvin Orlando Hernandez Villanueva ponders rocketry and immunotherapy theories while in ice custody awaiting his release

It strikes me that the above-pictured Mr. Villanueva is as unlikely to make a significant contribution to the world of science as he is to pick vegetables, or trim shrubbery in the Hamptons, but Moore’s fears are probably groundless anyway because these rocket scientists will all soon be back with us; or they were, under past standard practice. Will that change? The jury’s still out.

Dallas, Feb 25, 2025:

Price it, sell it. Or don't.

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12 Bryon Road, Old Greenwich, $4.995 million, highest and best offer immediately, now pending six days after hitting the market. Brother Gideon points out that, listing agent Ellen Mosher “has mastered the art of convincing sellers to price low, and let the market take it higher”. And that’s true, but it’s astonishing how hard it can be to convince home sellers that, as some of us have preached for decades, it’s almost impossible to underprice a house on the Greenwich MLS (where its fully-exposed to the market, as opposed to a private sale), but it’s entirely likely to kill a listing by overpricing.

Over the years I’ve blogged here on real estate, I’ve highlight house after house that started out overpriced, lingered on the market for months, even years, before selling for far less than it would have had it been priced correctly; this is true in slow markets as well as fast. If you want top dollar, don’t ask for it, and especially, don’t ask for more.

Just say no to the temptation; you’ll do fine..

Cut taxes, ease environmental regulations, allow cheap energy: imagine if a state did this for all its businesses or, shockingly, if it were done throughout the country?

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“New York: We’re open for business. The right business, at the right price”

If these measures can help one business, why not unleash them all?

New York businesses get shafted as Albany showers $5.5B, endless aid on Idaho’s Micron

Money is a powerful incentive. It helps explain why Micron Technology, the Idaho-based memory chip manufacturer, is looking to set up shop outside Syracuse — an area with no historical link to the company, or to semiconductor manufacturing.

State officials, hoping to break Central New York out of its economic doldrums, promised Micron $5.5 billion in cash-like incentives in 2022.

But on top of that, Albany offered the company a whole lot more to overcome obstacles and costs that other New York businesses routinely face ….

  • For starters, Micron got a big head-start in getting through SEQR (pronounced “seeker”), New York’s onerous environmental review process.

  • SEQR, on a good day, requires developers to pay for studies and jump through hoops to get permission for otherwise routine construction.

  • But the process is frequently abused by project opponents, and developers often have to turn to the courts for help getting things unstuck.

In a nutshell, SEQR scares many developers away from even proposing projects in New York, because there’s so much uncertainty about how long approvals will take — or if they’ll come at all.

Micron looks for the most part to be avoiding that problem.

Onondaga County’s economic development agency will be quarterbacking Micron’s SEQR process, and has already conducted — and paid for — detailed studies to make it easier to give the final sign-off on construction. State economic development officials are also giving Micron white-glove service.

  • And once the plant is built? Micron’s property tax bill will be just a fraction of what it otherwise would, thanks to a steep discount granted by county officials.

Compare that to existing New York companies, who are saddled in many parts of the state with a higher property tax rate than what’s levied on owner-occupied homes (read: voters).

  • Micron, by all indications, will also enjoy a complete exemption from New York’s corporate income tax, which would otherwise shave about 7% off its profits.

  • Micron’s planned manufacturing operations reveal some of the starkest differences between the company and other New York businesses: State officials have promised that it can build a three-mile natural gas pipeline to power the site.

Yet for years state lawmakers have been pushing to make it more costly for new businesses to tie into the gas grid, and regulators have thwarted various proposed pipelines that would provide the needed supply. 

The tightening supply means that parts of New York City and Westchester County have periodically been unable to add gas service at all.

One town about 50 miles south of the proposed Micron site has been under a gas hookup moratorium for a decade, preventing new restaurants and other businesses from opening.

For bigger manufacturers competing in the global market, access to gas can be crucial. When a paper plant in upstate Essex County couldn’t get a pipeline extended, the operator had to turn to a “virtual pipeline” — trucked-in deliveries of compressed natural gas, with drivers making several hour-long trips each day.

Recycling on Tomac UPDATED (just to show how it should be done)

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28 Tomac Avenue is back on the market, essentially unchanged, but with a 47% price improvement from its 2021 sale price: $3.5 million now, $2.370 million then.

The market ebbs and flows: this house sold for $2.6 million in 2006, those buyers made some extensive improvements and tried unsuccessfully to get $2.8 million in 2018 and finally sold it 2021 for the aforesaid $2.370.

But, though markets may change, real estate descriptions can stay exactly as they were: after all, if it worked once, why not try again? Different broker, different agent, but I think the reader will find these familiar:

2025:

Come enjoy the best life has to offer! Swim in the magnificent pool, lounge on the multiple decks, read on the wraparound porch - enjoy this oversized, ½ acre property only minutes walking distance from the beach, school, train and village of Old Greenwich and a stone's throw from the Innis Arden golf course. Move right in to the A. Lincoln Ford house, the best remaining example of the Queen Anne style in town. With an elegantly updated European flare for style and celebration, you will always feel on holiday here. This property offers both an enticing lifestyle as well as a rich heritage and still carries significant future expansion potential. Either way, this exceptional property is not to be missed!”

And from 2021:

Come enjoy the best life has to offer! Swim in the magnificent pool, lounge on the multiple decks, read on the wraparound porch - enjoy this oversized, ½ acre property only minutes walking distance from the beach, school, train and village of Old Greenwich and a stone's throw from the Innis Arden golf course. Move right in to the A. Lincoln Ford house, the best remaining example of the Queen Anne style in town. With an elegantly updated European flare for style and celebration, you will always feel on holiday here. This property offers both an enticing lifestyle as well as a rich heritage and still carries significant future expansion potential. Either way, this exceptional property is not to be missed!

Heck, they even reused the pictures — now, that’s recycling!

2025:

2021:

UPDATE, per GROK:

Step into a piece of history with this charming 1870 home on Tomac Speedway in the heart of Old Greenwich, Connecticut—a true gem that’s been lovingly shaped by three generations of the Havemeyer Irish family. This isn’t just a house; it’s a story, blending vintage character with unique features that make it one-of-a-kind.

Imagine cooking in a professional gourmet kitchen where modern meets heritage—the original coal stove still stands as a nod to the past, ready to inspire your culinary adventures. Out back, you’ll find a master privy outhouse and a smaller children’s privy, offering a quirky slice of yesteryear charm. The above-ground cesspool — with slide! — handles overflow with ease, making seasonal clean-up a breeze and adding to the property’s rustic appeal.

Location? unbeatable. With I-95 overhead, you’ve got instant access to wherever life takes you, all while nestled in the serene, historic vibe of Old Greenwich. The attic boasts full newspaper insulation—a clever, eco-friendly touch from a bygone era—while the vinyl siding (mostly in great shape) and once-galvanized steel roof keep this home standing strong.

Hurry—this rare find won’t last! A blend of history, quirk, and convenience, it’s ready for its next chapter. Could that be with you?

Inventory blues

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Tuesday is broker open house tour day for listings to the west of North Street (and Milbrook — go figure). In better days, there might be two, even three pages of properties to view, and it was almost impossible to get to all of them during the tour’s 10:00 - 2:00 time slot. That won’t be a problem today, because there are only five single-family homes being shown, and only two of those are new to the tour.

Boring.

The DOGE team is bringing in reinforcements

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From Pfizer to the FDA and then back to Pfizer — doin' the Washington Waltz

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And I’ll be at raytheon — we’ll make beautiful music together

Former Top Drug Regulator Lands Cushy Pfizer Gig After Leaving FDA During Trump Transition

Patrizia Cavazzoni, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, will serve as Pfizer’s Chief Medical Officer, the company announced Monday.

Cavazzoni retired from the FDA shortly before President Trump took office in January. She now rejoins Pfizer after a previous nearly eight-year stint at the company to work in the very industry she was in charge of regulating.

In her new role, Cavazzoni will “lead Pfizer’s regulatory, pharmacovigilance, safety, epidemiology, and medical information and evidence generation, among other medical functions,” the company announced in a press release.

“Here is how it works. FDA rubber stamps Pfizer drugs & vaccines even when the evidence is poor FDA even pushes these products on children,” Dr. Vinay Prasad of the University of California-San Francisco wrote on X.

“Then, you leave FDA and get paid by Pfizer,” he continued. “This is corruption.”

Hey: they fired one whacked-out, incompetent mayor, and elected an even more radical one in her place; what's the surprise?

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chicago’s last Republican mayor left office in 1931

Hello, World!

The machine will just insert another Democrat in the slot, and life in the Windy City will continue its death spiral.