Sometimes stubbornness pays off; if you aren't in any particular rush to move

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40 Upland Drive, asking $5.995 million, finally has a contract after first setting a tentative toe in the sales ocean back in April 2024. In this market, that’s practically forever, yet the initial price of $6.225 million was reduced only once, by 3.7%, last September. Hey — if it works for an owner’s relocation schedule, good; even if nothing else changes, inflation will eventually make its price look reasonable.

Absolutely. Then confiscate the vehicles of the idiots who block highways and bridges

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CT police chiefs want ability to seize, sell cars involved in street takeovers

HARTFORD — New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson has a simple solution to the dangerous, unannounced, unruly masses of motor vehicle drivers and spectators that block traffic and threaten public safety: "No more cars, no more street takeovers."

That was his message to state lawmakers this week in pushing for legislation that would allow police to seize cars involved in street takeovers and sell them at auction.

"These street takeovers can happen in any town, any time of the day or night," Jacobson, speaking for the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association during a public hearing Tuesday before the legislative Public Safety & Security Committee. "They're extremely disruptive and dangerous to those on the road. These incidents have encountered mob mentality behavior from those participating in takeovers." Many of the drivers use different sets of license plates to avoid detection, he said.

While takeovers often involved hundreds of vehicles and drivers who outnumber law enforcement, Jacobson believes that seizing the vehicles, then selling them, would send an easy-to-understand consequence while giving towns and cities revenue to pay for the stepped-up enforcement.

"These investigations and the prosecution of these incidents are extremely difficult, since most, if not all of the participants are from different states and areas outside of Connecticut," Jacobson said. "The arrests we have made are from Mass, New Jersey and Connecticut. We need a penalty, which will stop these activities. There have been four shootings in New Haven related to street takeovers and we've seized three guns during arrests for street takeovers. They are setting fires in the street, throwing fireworks at police officers and jumping on police cars when the officers are outnumbered. They are taking over residential intersections as well as highway areas."

In recent months spectators were injured during a December street takeover in North Haven. Last month New Haven Police arrested a Milford woman who allegedly announced takeovers around the state on Instagram.

"When we do disband a street takeover there are hundreds of cars leaving at the same time," said Jacobson, stressing that regional efforts involved police from multiple towns and State Police, have been somewhat effective. "It takes drones, multiple officers, stop sticks, many other law enforcement efforts. We need penalties which make all these efforts worthwhile. We threw stop sticks one night and we probably stopped 50 car tires but we didn't have enough cops to make arrests, so those people drove home without tires and I think that kind of slowed them from picking New Haven as the areas because since that arrest night we haven't seen a lot of activity."

No influence left to peddle, the Notebook Kid has gone bust

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“Who knew that spending all your money on high-priced hookers and crack weren't a solid investment strategy?”

Well, That Didn’t Take Long: Hunter Biden Is Already Broke

Just weeks after Donald Trump took back the White House from Joe Biden, his formerly crack-smoking son Hunter is broke. Now, he is seeking to drop his own federal laptop hacking lawsuit against Garrett Ziegler, who exposed the contents of Hunter's infamous laptop through his Marco Polo non-profit website. 

No one wants his paintings, no one will pay to hear him, Amtrak doesn’t want him back on its board of directors, and even his cash-bearing Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian friends won’t return his calls.

Sad.

The truth will set you free: to find another job

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State Farm Fires Executive After What He Told an Undercover Reporter

Some idiot spilled the beans to an O’Keefe reporter (how does he keep finding these morons?)

A State Farm insurance executive has been fired after he blasted Los Angeles fire victims and told an undercover O’Keefe Media Group journalist that the company discriminates against white people in its hiring.

“I personally, I task my HR team, finding me… the perfect profile of the workforce of the future,” Haden Kirkpatrick, the former Vice President of Innovation and Venture Capital at State Farm, says in the recording. “I want the 2040 workforce. So go find me the demographic profile of America in 2040: more Hispanic and Latinos.”

Kirkpatrick also criticized California fire victims for their “egos building in a f***ing desert.”

OMG’s James O’Keefe summarizes the conversation:

“People want to build in areas where they want to have, like, natural areas around them for their ego. But it’s also a f*ing desert. And so, it dries out as a tinderbox.” He also acknowledged that wildfires in these areas are not surprising to insurance professionals, claiming, “Climate change is pushing these seasons.” He explained, “If you’re an insurance professional, it’s predictable.” 

Kirkpatrick also admitted that State Farm’s decision to pull out of the California insurance market was a calculated move in response to financial concerns and state regulations: “Our people look at this and say, ‘Sh*t, we’ve got, like, maybe $5 billion that we’re short if something happens.’” He revealed, “We’ll go to the Department of Insurance and say, ‘We’re overexposed here, you have to let us catch up our rate.’ And they’ll say, ‘Nah.’ And we’ll say, ‘Okay, then we are going to cancel these policies.’” 

State Farm, which previously covered over a million homeowners in California, provided insurance against fire, theft, and other damages. However, their decision to withdraw coverage has left thousands of residents without financial protection following devastating wildfires. “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” except for the Californians now facing the aftermath of destruction without insurance coverage.

Following the exposé, State Farm terminated Kirkpatrick and issued the following statement to O'Keefe:

Does anyone doubt that State Farm is enmeshed in the entire DEI scheme, including hiring and promoting? In the Peoples Republic of Cali? I don’t.

And it’s a fact that State Farm left the state after California’s insurance regulators turned down the company’s request for a rate hike sufficient to cover what everyone know will be catastrophic losses, and it’s a fact that the cost of wildfires has soared as people have spread into previously empty wildfire zones that burn regularly: Californian’s have always described their weather as divided into “drought, fire and flood seasons”, long before the global warming hoax got started.

The fact that this former executive buys into the global warming story is irrelevant: State Farm and the other property insurers in the Golden State are facing disaster, and the eco-nuts and “consumer advocates” are simply whistling past the graveyard.

That’ll work until it doesn’t.

So, question: When did NoPo gain a fancy new appellation on our Multi-List?

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I just noticed that 30 Arnold Street, which used to be described as “North of Post Road”, or “Havemeyer” or even, as deceptive as those terms were, “Old Greenwich” or “Riverside”.

Now the MLS shows it as located in a newly-coined district: something called “North Mianus” — a neighborhood with no zip code of its own, no post office, and whose former, and only claim to fame was as the site of a 1948 housing project of 800 sq.ft. “temporary” (they’re still there) homes for returning WWII veterans.

“North Mianus” didn’t exist as a separate MLS section at least as recently as 2005:

Nor in 2000. Then again, houses in the area were cheaper then, and if the new population of multi-millionaires doesn’t want to be associated with the former neighborhood comprised of grease-stained lawyers and bank vice presidents, well, who can blame them?

Inventory watch

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The Thursday open house tour list is final; three single family residences, one condo, period.

So, nothing out there. I do see that there’s a new listing in Havemeyer, 30 Arnold Street, priced at $2.895 million — sure, that seems like a suspiciously low price, but note this caveat in the note to realtors: “Freezer in lower level is excluded.”

It all makes sense now: at less than $3,000,000, you don’t just give away your most prized possession.

“My precious!”

Powerline’s John Hinderaker offers a good take on yesterday's Supreme Court decision, and what's at stake

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I was appalled by the court’s upholding of a single federal judge’s nationwide injunction against cutting off funds to USAID; appalled, and so discouraged by what’s happened to our judicial system that I lost my usual interest in commenting or even reading about politics, and wrote nothing on it yesterday. I don’t really care whether the Democrats waved pickleball paddles at he president, or were mean to a very young cancer patient: these are sideshows to the fundamental battle we’re engaged in.

Still, as John Hinderaker writes below, it’s early days: this fight has only just begun, and good things may yet be possible. Maybe.

An Opening Salvo

John Hinderaker:

“On February 13, a left-wing judge in the District of Columbia entered a temporary restraining order barring the federal government from enforcing executive orders that paused the disbursement of certain foreign aid funds. On February 25, the same judge ordered the federal government to make some of the payments that had been “paused”–namely, those to federal contractors for work that had been completed.

“The case wound up in the Supreme Court on an application by the federal government to vacate or stay the district court’s February 25 order. That application was denied earlier today, on a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Barrett joining the liberals–an alignment that we have seen in several high-profile cases. Today’s decision has generated a fair amount of comment, mostly by people who haven’t read it.

“The case, in its present posture, raises technical issues relating to federal court procedure, as well as substantive issues relating to sovereign immunity, and whether it has been waived under the Administrative Procedure Act. The majority decision–there isn’t a full-fledged opinion–resolved nothing:

Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines. The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE [an administrative stay] is vacated.

“Justice Sam Alito wrote a dissenting opinion on behalf of the four conservative justices. Finding more significance in the current proceeding, it begins:

“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.

Hinderaker:

“I’m not. There are major constitutional battles coming, over the separation of powers and the roles of Congress and the President in spending money. Major issues will be addressed: Does the President have the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated? Does the President have the power to re-allocate money appropriated by Congress among various uses or programs? If so, under what circumstances? What is the President supposed to do, for example, if he learns that a particular program is riddled with fraud?

“The Democrats’ answer to that last question is, Nothing. This is what we have seen play out in Minnesota, in the Feeding Our Future scandal. State agencies knew that the program was close to 100% a criminal fraud, yet the Tim Walz administration did nothing until the FBI finally stepped in. That is the model the Democrats would follow at the national level.

“Today’s brief encounter in the Supreme Court was the opening salvo in a long, and very important, war. I don’t think there are any tea leaves to be read from the 5-4 decision. What we hear in the background is the distant thunder of major constitutional issues that are about to be fought out.”

Chris Murphy, champion of equal opportunity for girl athletes “Fairness on the Field” and “Fair Play for Women”

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Chris Murphy Press Release, February 07, 2024:

Murphy, Adams Reintroduce Legislation To Promote Gender Equity In Sports

WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … reintroduced legislation to promote gender equity in college and K-12 sports. The Fair Play for Women Act would promote fairness and equity in participation opportunities and institutional support for women's and girls' sports programs, ensure transparency and public reporting of data by college and K-12 athletic programs, hold athletic programs and athletic associations more accountable for Title IX violations and discriminatory treatment, and improve education and awareness of Title IX rights among college and K-12 athletes as well as athletics staff. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and U.S. Representatives Lori Trahan (D-Mass.-03) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.-01) co-sponsored the legislation.

“Sports change lives. They provide a safe harbor for the wayward energies of young people, directing them toward productive futures through diligence, endurance, good health, teamwork, sportsmanship, and fairness on the field. Sports provide a redemption from the past, a refuge for the present, and opportunities for the future. Knowing all this, how could we rest if these opportunities are not fairly provided to our girls as well as our boys? Sports are nothing if not fair. I’m proud to champion fairness on the field, and Fair Play for Women”

The Fair Play for Women Act really is about fairness—enabling women and girls to have equitable opportunities in sports and holding schools accountable when they don’t. The stark truth is that despite progress after Title IX, women and girls still face fewer opportunities than boys to participate in sports and insufficient resources for their teams. This necessary legislation will confront the continued lack of gender equity and fairness in sports,” said Blumenthal.

“For too long, schools have fallen short of the standard of equal opportunity set by Title IX. Athletic programs routinely devote fewer resources and less support to women’s sports at every level of education, depriving women and girls of the full benefits that sports provide. The Fair Play for Women Act will strengthen Title IX protections and increase transparency so all student athletes have the same opportunities to participate and compete.”

March 4, 2025:

Just sayin.

(We can’t see him here, but everyone knows Murphy looks pretty in pink)