Sales reported

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Four of note, starting at the top (of the price range)

An object lesson in leaving well enough alone

167 Zaccheus Mead Lane, $10.4 million on an asking price of $10.995. It’s been a long slog for this property over the years and I summarized much of that history in a previous post.

The basic points:

  • Sold for $6.2 million in 1999

  • After being remuddled by the new owners, they put it up for sale @$10.5 million, and settled for $5.935 in 2018.

  • Still more work performed by these owners, and offered it for sale this year at tge aforesaid $10.995, and had a contract in 28 days.

at least they preserved much of the 1904 front

10 Echo Lane, guide price, $3.495 million, selling price $4.0. Nine days on market

Echo Lane

74 Long Meadow Road, NoPo, $3.710 million. Listing agent and clever Dutch Maid Daphne Lamsvelt-Pol priced it at just $3.275 with this not-unexpected result. Imagine what she could do if she were an Edam Cheese vendor.

“Swamp Vue”, Riverside Achers

1000 Lake Avenue, $1.5 got, $1.3 asked. Six days. A land sale, 2.67 acres in the 4-acre zon.

Nobody's gonna steal MY zinneas!

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42 Bruce Park Drive, built in 1924 and last renovated in 1997 has been put up for sale at $4.125 million. Brother Gideon noticed that there are some significant exclusions from what’s to be conveyed and like me, wonders what possesses sellers who cling so fiercely to their curtains, pizza ovens and, here, their beefsteak tomatoes and even poor old grandpapa, who undoubtedly just wants to rest in peace.

Exclude 1. Weathervane on family room roof 2. Lamb on dining room fireplace 3. Sconces and chandelier in dining room 4. Chandelier in entrance hall 5. Sconces in livingroom 6. Sconces on upstairs hallway 7. Select Peonies from garden 8. Daffodil bulbs and some assorted plants from vegetable garden 9. Mirror and side table unit in entrance hall 10. Sconce in 'anteroom' before first floor

Who'd have thunk?

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Stephen Green:

Montana cut income tax rates, and revenues more than doubled.

For years, opponents of income tax relief have warned that lowering tax rates would reduce state revenues and threaten government services.

Montana’s own tax collection data tells a very different story.

Over the past decade, individual income tax collections increased from $1.06 billion in Fiscal Year 2014 to $2.24 billion in Fiscal Year 2024. That’s an increase of more than 111 percent.

Corporate income tax collections grew even faster, rising from $147.6 million to $312.3 million over the same period—an increase of nearly 112 percent.

In other words, Montana’s two major income tax sources didn’t stagnate after lawmakers began reducing individual income tax rates. They more than doubled.

Those numbers should force policymakers to reconsider one of the most common arguments in tax policy debates. The claim that lower tax rates automatically lead to lower tax revenues simply isn’t supported by Montana’s experience.

Green makes a great point:

The problem is that too many policymakers don’t see taxes as a way to raise revenue, but as a means for punishing their enemies.

Everything has its cost

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Your money or your baby’s life, madam — your choice

I was in a local supermarket this morning — not Whole Foods, or “Snooty Pierre’s Emporium for the Elite”, but a regular old, standard store selling food for everyday use — and was appalled to see that iceberg lettuce was priced at $2.49; good lord, for a bit of tasteless crunch? No thanks.

But the real shock came when I moved 10’ down the aisle to the “organic” section and saw what they wanted for that same product enhanced with a halo. I bought neither type.

“Laced with insecticide, and rushed foaming from our garden to your table!”

“Irrigated with only the finest of all-natural unicorn urine and farm worker sweat”

A Nation Divided Against Itself

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NYC slouches towards Armageddon

Greenwich real estate agents (should) celebrate, for now, but the Red States beckon. It’s only worth staying in proximity to NYC for so long as there’s something to stick around for

Matt Vespa, PJMedia on the new face of the Democrat party:

They were expected to have a great night, and they did. The candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani all won. The socialists swept the race. While the national Democrats are Trump-deranged and focused on stopping the MAGA agenda, they have a serial killer hiding within their walls—and it’s wearing a Che Guevara shirt, with a copy of Das Kapital in its back pocket. And while this political killer is no fan of Trump, they want to take out the establishment Democrats first. This party got a reality check tonight: they might have to spend heavily to keep these people out, because the candidates that are winning these primaries are whack job city.

Good news, at least temporarily, for Greenwich real estate sales, because our Hartford Loonies seem content with running the state on a Mandamni Lite agenda, so we’ll continue to look relatively attractive to those NYC refugees who, for now, can’t flee farther away from the coming apocalypse. But down the road? These seems a good time to refer to an article posted yesterday by PowerLine’s John Hinderaker. My only quibble? He refers to “socialism”, and while that may be what the proletariat thinks it’s voting for, these DSA candidates, Platner in Maine, NYC’s new governing body, call for the abolishment of private property, confiscation of “the means of production”, and “workers rule”; that’s what’s coming, and that will be the end.

Our Socialist Fellow-Citizens

The gulf between Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/socialists has grown to the point where it may be unbridgeable. Check out these recent poll data from CNN. Democrats are now firmly in the socialist camp:

How do two parties jointly govern a republic when one of them wants to establish a completely different economic system–a system which is not only intrinsically evil, but which always leads to tyranny? We once were able to compromise our differing views of what would be optimal marginal tax rates. But how do you compromise our insistence on freedom with their yearning for socialist servitude?

The only parallel that our country’s history offers is the conflict over slavery that resulted in the Civil War. Arguably that conflict was more amenable to peaceful political resolution than the one we face now, since we theoretically could have continued for a long time as a nation composed of some free states and some slave states. That is, in fact, what happened for around 70 years. But in today’s world, there isn’t any way to have an economy and a legal system that are half free and half socialist.

There is one obvious positive resolution of the current crisis–a thorough repudiation of the Democratic Party at the polls. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. The Democrats have generally done well in elections in 2025 and 2026, and they probably will do well again in the midterms. What, then, will deter them from continuing down the socialist path? A brutal drubbing in 2028. But at present, there is no reason to expect that result.

So before long, we may have to confront the question whether a nation can long endure, half socialist and half free.

UPDATE: Just to beat this dead horse further …

JOHN FUND: The rise and rise of America’s radical left.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed three fellow socialists in the New York City Democratic Congressional primaries and all three won last night.

Democratic incumbent Dan Goldman lost to Brad Lander, who was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America until 2023. DSA Member Claire Valdez won nomination for a Brooklyn House seat.

But the eyepopper is the victory of Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old DSA member and PhD graduate student, in East Harlem and the Bronx. She defeated Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and will easily become the most radical House member since Vito Marcantonio of the American Labor Party represented the same area in the 1940s.

The night before his election in November, Zohran Mamdani filmed a video honoring his “radical” hero, Marcantonio.

Chevalier’s views would send even Marcantonio into orbit. DAC – as she will inevitably be dubbed – is so ideologically extreme that Jeff Maurer, a former writer for unrelentingly left-wing comic John Oliver’s HBO show, is gobsmacked by her. Maurer began his latest Substack post by announcing “My challenge is to find words to describe just how bonkers this Cirque du Soleil-level s—show truly is.”

DAC has called for abolishing police, prisons, and borders. As recently as last week, she refused to back down on those views when given an opportunity: “All deportations are wrong,” she says, even for those convicted of a crime.

She co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the militant student group behind the violent 2024 occupation of Columbia after the Hamas attacks in Gaza the year before. CUAD is explicitly anti-Enlightenment: “We are Westerners fighting for the eradication of Western Civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our intifada is an Internationalist one…”

Chevalier called the United States “a f—— disgrace,” and referred to the US as “occupied” Native American land. She’s written favorably about communism and seizing “all properties from landlords.”

She has criticized Bernie Sanders and AOC for being too pro-Israel, and is known as a key leader in the “left of AOC” faction of Democratic Socialists of America.

Seen on X:

Moron Platner

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Maine Democrats (all Democrats, actually) are just fine with a communist senate candidate who despises America, but not all that long ago the party at least pretended to honor veterans and their service. I don’t believe that’s still the case, so the unearthing of still more Graham Platner quotes won’t lessen their enthusiasm, but it should.

Graham Platner Endorsed Comment From 'RevolutionaryCommie' Calling America a 'Disgraceful Country': 'I'm an American, and I Can't Disagree'

The since-deleted Reddit post came in the wake of the Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani's death

In the wake of the U.S. strike that took out longtime Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani, a Reddit user posting under the handle "RevolutionaryCommie" denounced America's "ghoulish" and "disgusting" response to Soleimani's death, writing, "They are a disgraceful country." The comment earned an endorsement from left-wing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who responded, "I can't disagree."

The remark from "RevolutionaryCommie" came in response to an original post highlighting President Donald Trump's famous American flag tweet sent after the January 2020 strike killed Soleimani, then the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the Iraq war. The self-described communist Redditor took issue with the "responses to the tweet: the racism, the cheering death, the calling for more killings, the mocking of the dead," calling it "the most ghoulish and disgusting thing I've ever seen. They are a disgraceful country." Platner, using the alias "P-Hustle," responded with his endorsement.

"I'm an American, and I can't disagree with you tonight," he wrote.

The comment, which has not been previously reported, is the latest in a series of remarks from Platner denigrating the United States and its military veterans.

Months before his Soleimani-inspired remark, in June 2019, Platner—who also referred to himself as a "communist" on Reddit—denigrated a Purple Heart recipient, Teddy Daniels, who was shown in a then-viral video being shot by Taliban fighters amid a firefight in Afghanistan. Daniels had purposely moved into open fire to draw attention away from his fellow soldiers. Platner called him a "dumb motherf—er" who "didn't deserve to live."

"This video never gets old," Platner wrote. "Dumb motherf—er didn't deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home."

Years later, in May 2024, Platner appeared on the podcast Green Beret Chronicle Show to expand on comments he originally posted to Reddit accusing members of Task Unit Bruiser, the legendary Navy SEAL unit that included widely regarded war hero and "American Sniper" Chris Kyle. Platner suggested Kyle shot innocent civilians to inflate his kill numbers, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

"[Kyle's] stories about how many people he was shooting certainly tracked with the behavior we, I, witnessed," said Platner, who served in Iraq but said he "didn't know" the members of Task Unit Bruiser. "It's relatively easy to get high numbers like that if you're, if you're a little less discriminating in your fire than, say, a more professional unit would be."

…. …..

Indeed, Platner has said plenty, most notably in comments posted to Reddit under his since-deleted "P-Hustle" account. In addition to calling himself a "communist," Platner wrote that rural white Americans "actually are" racist and stupid and that rape victims should "take some responsibility."

….[T] he polling gap between Platner and Collins has shrunk. Platner faced a fresh wave of criticism after the New York Times reported on his troubled relationships with women, most notably quoting an ex-girlfriend who accused Platner of physical abuse and said he boasted of deliberately choosing his infamous "Totenkopf" tattoo—a skull-and-crossbones symbol associated with the Nazi SS—because he found it "relevant" to his military unit. A recent poll from Quantus Insights found that Platner now leads Collins by just 1 point.

Platner's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.