Who can recommend a good housepainter for here in Greenwich, now that the Fountain Boyz have retired?

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A friend has asked, and the one I worked for in high school is long gone, but having learned the skill, I could rarely bring myself to pay someone to do work I could do as well, probably better, myself. I once did employ a team from somewhere near the foot of the Whitestone Bridge — probably all illegals back then, but cheap —and they did an adequate job on the exterior, and spared me the indignity of falling off a 30’ ladder, but I don’t know where they are after all these years; probably all the proud grandparents of freshly-minted American citizens who have better things to do or can make more on welfare.

So, readers, suggestions? I’ll point out that if a painting or building contractor wanted to run a $49 ad on this site, he’d certainly enjoy multifold returns in new business - Just sayin’. (Or if you’re not in the trades, you can always just hit the new improved red-button donation spot on the right)

Hope she enjoys her nice and ICEy Turkish Bath

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For her next trick, she’ll be opening a home care/hospice/autism center

An Illinois woman who claimed she was detained by ICE for nearly two days was actually relaxing at a hotel getting spa treatments, according to a $1 million defamation suit filed by a county sheriff. 

US citizen Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, 28, gained national attention last month when she and a band of supporters – including Cook County, Ill., Commissioner Kevin Morrison — publicly insisted she was unlawfully detained by ICE officers for roughly 43 hours. 

Naqvi claimed that after landing back in the US from a work trip to Turkey on the morning of March 5, she was detained for nearly 30 hours at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, then transferred to another ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., before winding up at Dodge County Jail in Wisconsin. 

Morrison, who called the Chicago-area native his “best friend’s sister,” shared questionable screenshots of Naqvi’s location at the Juneau, Wisc., jail on Facebook — and decried the alleged incident during a tense media conference alongside Naqvi’s sister March 8. 

“This is a 28-year-old girl just left on the street by ICE in another state, without her property,” the commissioner said. 

He claimed Naqvi was released from custody in the early hours of March 7, then hitchhiked nine miles to a hotel, where she was met by family. 

The Department of Homeland Security called the claims “blatantly false” — and even posted surveillance footage from the airport showing Naqvi entering a secondary inspection zone that morning and leaving around an hour later. 

“Ms. Naqvi departed CBP within 90 minutes of her arrival to the United States…[she] was not taken into custody or transferred to ICE for detention,” DHS wrote in a March 10 X statement. 

The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office also said it had no record of Naqvi ever “being booked, detained, or released” at the local jail. 

But Morrison, who is running for a seat in Congress, doubled down — even accusing the officials of “lying” and “trying to create a cover-up,” according to the Wisconsin outlet WISN 12 News. 

Now Naqvi and Morrison are the subjects of a federal defamation lawsuit filed by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt on Friday — as his office released new details of Naqvi’s actual actions during the alleged hoax period. 

“She checked into the Hampton Inn and Suites in Rosemont, Ill., for the entire duration of this alleged event,” Schmidt said during a press conference, where he presented a hotel bill and text receipts to illustrate Naqvi’s time there.  

The folio shows Naqvi checked in at the Hampton Inn — just a 10-minute drive from the airport — at 1:17 p.m. March 5, while text messages with an unidentified witness over the following days show she enjoyed free food, spa services and trips to the gym. 

“May I use ur card to order some food” and “going to check out the gym in like 5,” read texts from Naqvi to the witness, according to authorities.

“May i use your card to pay my spa lady?” another says in screenshots released by the sheriff’s office. 

The witness told cops he also drove Naqvi to a nearby gas station in the early hours of March 7. 

Surveillance footage taken from that outing revealed Naqvi brazenly wearing the same clothes that she’s later seen sporting in a “reunited” picture uploaded to Facebook just hours later, according to the sheriff’s office. 

The accused liar checked out of the hotel on the afternoon of March 8, the folio shows. 

Though Wisconsin authorities were not able to bring criminal charges in this case, Schmidt is seeking justice through the lawsuit, officials said.

Schmidt is requesting a jury trial and seeking damages no less than $1 million per defendant — including 10 “John Does” — who he said caused “reputational harm…particularly as he prepares for a re-election campaign in 2026.” 

Paradise Lost

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leaving galt’s gulch

Back in the early-mid 70s I spent quite a bit of time in Colorado, and was struck by the energy of the people my age who I met there: they all not only had jobs, but all seemed to have plans for starting businesses and striking out on their own. My plans to return there to live got sidetracked by life, but family members have moved there and I’ve been back myself many times.

So I’ve followed the state’s fortunes over the past 50 years, and observed its slow, sad decline. Now-former Coloradoan Stephen Green has witnessed the same deterioration and writes about it today in PJ Media:

Another Red State, Fully Californicated

"20 years ago Colorado was a Red state and thriving," the State Leadership Initiative posted late last week. "10 years ago liberals were writing pieces about how Colorado was the next Silicon Valley." And now CBS News reports that "Colorado is losing businesses and jobs at an alarming rate."

This was the hope, according to Denver-based 5280 magazine in 2020: "With another tech company setting up an office in Denver, the state could become a magnet for Silicon Valley firms and other prestigious businesses during the worst economic climate in nearly a century."

Instead of Silicon Mountain, Colorado is quickly becoming "an economic backwater," as SLI put it, "an omen for what happens when Red states go blue."

…. "The Colorado Chamber of Commerce has been sounding an alarm for years about excessive regulation," CBS reported, and "the Chamber also said that companies are also relocating out-of-state." According to the story, "since 2019, 98 companies have either left the state, expanded elsewhere, or scrapped plans to move here." In the last four years, we've lost a total of 34 corporate headquarters, too. 

The most recent big name to leave is Palantir, the AI firm recently touted by President Donald Trump for its invaluable contributions to Operation Epic Fury. With basically zero fanfare, the company announced last week that it's moved its HQ to Miami. 

"We are going to be hurting Colordans not just now, but the next generation, the next generation after that. And we just want to course correct," tech entrepreneur and investor Dan Caruso wrote to Democrat Gov. Jared Polis in a letter signed by more than 200 business and civic leaders.

Polis and the Democrat-dominated statehouse made some polite noises about maybe looking into something resembling deregulation someday soonish, but Colorado requires so much more.

Let's go back to something I wrote almost exactly one year ago, when we looked at what Colorado was like before and after 2018, the year Democrats took full control of the state government.

Previously, Colorado was:

  • Third in the nation for personal income growth.

  • A regulatory burden in the lower half of all states.

  • Tied for second-lowest unemployment in 2017 at 2.7% — and that wasn’t unusual.

  • Job growth of 2.4% in 2017 — typical for a state that was regularly in the top ten.

  • A top-10 destination for people moving in from other states.

And this is my state on Democrats, all taken from the 2024 report card published in early '25 by the Denver Gazette:

  • 39th in the nation for personal income growth.

  • Sixth-worst regulatory burden in the nation.

  • In March, we had the second-highest unemployment rate (not an atypical month).

  • Job-growth rate of 0.17% (March 2024-March 2025), 43rd in the nation.

  • A bottom-10 destination for people moving in from other states.

2025 was largely more of the same. 

Polis leaves office in January of next year, likely to be replaced by either Sen. Michael Bennet or Attorney General Phil Weiser. They're both Democrats, and both promise more of the same policies that have already turned the promise of Silicon Mountain into the sad reality of a failing blue state.

So sad

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Eric Swalwell's week from hell just got a whole lot worse, and this time, the fire came from someone who called him family.

Stephen Cloobeck, a timeshare mogul, publicly nuked his relationship with the accused rapist California congressman on Sunday. Hours later, Swalwell quietly announced that he was dropping his bid for California governor.

Apparently, Cloobeck had been letting Swalwell crash at his 9,700-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion while the congressman battled mounting allegations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual misconduct from multiple women. Swalwell even filmed his denial video there on Friday.

By Sunday, Cloobeck had seen enough. He kicked Swalwell out.

>>>>>>

Just weeks ago, Cloobeck called Swalwell his “little brother” in an interview with Politico, and he scoffed in a previous interview with The Post when asked about rumors that Swalwell may have acted inappropriately with female staff and interns.

Cloobeck, who said he has been a Democrat for “almost 40-year plus,” is now unsure where the allegations will ultimately lead, but he said the controversy was enough to make him walk away.

“I don’t know where these facts are going to end up — you hear or read all this stuff,” he said.

When asked whether he believed Swalwell had been truthful with him, Cloobeck said: “I’m gonna have to investigate that. I don’t know the answer to that.”

Cloobeck, who gained more name recognition after briefly running for governor last year and making multiple appearances on the TV show “Undercover Boss,” has been extremely generous to Swalwell.

On top of letting the deeply-in-debt congressman frequently stay at his 9,700-square-foot mansion, Cloobeck gave the maximum $39,200 to Swalwell’s campaign and gifted the congressman a $31,000 trip to France in 2024.

Your house won't sell? Raise its price!

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That’s the tactic adopted by the owners of 261 River Road in Cos Cob, on the market since March 2025; today they hiked its price $275,000 from $2.475 million to $2.725. I assume that the steady price reductions on this house finally produced results and a number of offers have been received, but rather than accepting the best offer and being thankful to get it, or going to a highest and best bidding process, they seem to have rejected all of the offers and are reaching for higher ones.

Not a strategy I’d have suggested.

New listing in Riverside

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153 Lockwood Road, $2,589,000. Like other homes on this stretch of Lockwood Road and Linwood, children here are assigned to Dundee elementary school, rather than Riverside or Old Greenwich. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Dundee, but if I were raising kids, I’d prefer that their peers/playmates in the neighborhood all attended the same school. As it is, a child living on Verona Drive, directly across the street from this house, will attend Riverside, while these children will be bused across the Post Road and over to Dundee. Not a huge deal in the long run, I suppose, but as a parent, I wouldn’t like that division.