Sometimes, in order to understand why a house won't sell, it pays to look at the big picture

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4 Mercia Lane, almost-in-Belle Haven, is back on the market today at $2.995 million. That’s an improvement, at least in current dollars, over the $2.650 million ($3,632,342) 2005 price it failed to sell for in 2005-2006, so we’ll see. Perfectly nice house, as I recall from touring it back then, but with one problem:

It has a lovely pool, for instance, in a bucolic setting:

A magnificent (looking) side yard:

And a view from the tippy top of the chimney that, looking south, is very pretty:

But alas, look north, young man, and you’ll spot the problem; hear it, too.

Great moments in real estate pricing

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121 Round Hill Road Greenwich

121 Round Hill Road is new again today, this time priced at $4.995 million, presumably because they couldn’t sell it at its May price of $4.895. It’s land sale, — 2. 3 acres — and supposedly shovel ready, what with town approval for a 10,000 st. of house already designed by the seller’s architect. The trouble with the latter is that buyers rarely want to use the seller’s plan, they want to build to their own taste, and rarely are they willing to pay extra for yours.

The pricing history here has been … er, erratic.:

$4.5 02.07/2025

$4.3 05/15/2025

$4.895 0508/2026

$4.995 08/10/26

PrimeSites, Inc., of Lincoln Nebraska, currently holds title, and as you can see from FWIW’w exclusive photograph above, they’ve brought in a band of Cornhuskers to remove the one of the causes of buyer resistance. FWIW’s photographer reprts that work is proceeding slowly, but surely, and estimates a (de) completion dater of no later than 2028.

Orchard Place Contract

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29 Orchard Place, “adjusted” price, $3.945 million (started at $4.195 in May), is under contract. 1932 house, expanded/renovated in 2017, it sold for $3.8 million January 2023 on an asking price of $3.4.

Here’s a video from that 2023 sale, if you’re curious; nothing’s changed.

Smoke, mirrors and bull**it

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Reader/commenter Pierre DeLecto; no, not Mittens Romney, I don’t think, but hey, could be — if Cliff Asness is/was a reader, and once invited me to a fundraiser at his house for Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan (the highlight of which was sharing a small dinner table with Ari Fleischer and his lovely wife) why not Mitt himself?) writes,

Speaking of hoaxes, Jill Oberlander sent a mass mailing today hailing how Lamont just announced cutting 25 mins off commutes from New Haven to GCT. Presumably, that is a rationale to vote for her to replace Ryan Fazio.

It's a hoax because that was already announced. Even Alex Bergstromm Kasser, the former State Senator, ran on that fib before she quit to divorce her husband and move away with a lesbian lover.

More important, while Lamont and Oberlander may take credit for working on the railroad, all the so-called improvements will be between Greenwich and New Haven. No one boarding in Greenwich will get a shorter commute! That would require Hochul to make improvements! What idiots!

Where is the Snopes fact check when it is much needed?

We have better than Snopes, Pierre, we have Jim Cameron’s column, Talking Transportation. I’m sure Mr. Cameron and I would disagree on many topics, even public transportation, sometimes, but he’s informed, objective, and calls out political fraud when he spots it, as he does in this recent column that I saw over at GreenwichWise.com

Connecticut’s $1.6 Billion Train Promise

ByJim Cameron

The Governor and the CDOT tried to make some “big news” about our trains last week. Here’s how most media summarized the story: “Connecticut has broken ground on the $1.6 billion TIME-1 upgrade of the New Haven Line, targeting speeds of up to 90 mph, improving service by 2035.”

Maybe you saw the media coverage and said, “Wow. Great news”. Or maybe you had a sense of déjà vu and asked yourself two questions: “Haven’t I heard this promise before?” (yes) and “Should I believe this promise, delivered in an election year?” (no).

As a journalist I was disappointed (but not surprised) that almost no media asked those same questions, instead just regurgitating the press release. So let me try to separate the facts from the hype.

TIME FOR CT PROJECT: Your sense of déjà vu was correct, as the Governor and CDOT made this same announcement five years ago.  And their promises then have yet to be delivered. 

In fact it was in 2019 that Governor Lamont promised us a 30 minute train ride from New Haven to Stamford. The fastest trains today are the early morning super-expresses, which run non-stop in 45 minutes. Better, but not what was promised.

WILL THIS REALLY COST $1.6 BILLION ?: Yes, and it’s not yet fully funded. There’s money so far only for Phase One, just $340 million, to rebuild the catenary, fix one bridge and upgrade tracks and signaling. And this Phase One covers merely three miles of track.

Phases Two and Three, which bring the biggest improvements, are not yet funded.  Transportation money from the current White House is drying up, so the prospect of the additional $1.3 billion that’s needed seems to me like wishful thinking. In the tech world they call such claims “vapor-ware”.

So why announce a project that won’t be finished for nine years when funding is still uncertain? Because it’s an election year.

….

SPEEDS OF 90 MPH ?: This is the promise that most angers me because it’s just not true. It’s just like Amtrak’s claim that its new Acela NextGen runs 165 mph. Yes… for about 10 miles in New Jersey and a few more in Rhode Island, but not the full trip from Boston to Washington.

And Connecticut’s supposed “90 mph” trains… they’ll achieve that for a three mile straight stretch between Stratford and Bridgeport, but almost nowhere else.  And by the way, the promised improved average speed of 70 mph on Metro-North will be the same speed limit before the Bridgeport and Spuyten Duyvil derailments prompted the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) to lower the speed limits. And that was 13 years ago.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE: This project is important and I hope it gets built, even if it takes longer and costs more than what’s being promised now. But as I’ve said for years in my CT Rail Commuter Council days, “Our train service will get worse before it gets better”. 

There will be delays, just as we’ve seen on other CDOT projects (like the Darien train station, now 15 months behind schedule) or the never ending work on I-95, I-91 and I-84.

But can’t the CDOT and their pol bosses at least be honest with us and not over-promise and consistently under-deliver? 

And to my fellow journalists… please stop being stenographers. Our job isn’t to parrot press releases. It’s to ask the question on every commuter’s mind: ‘Will this actually happen?’  

Why, That’s Waaaasist!

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“She was the best mother anyone could ask for — hardworking, compassionate, selfless, and always willing to help others before herself,” Tawnda Grayson said.

Indiana prosecutors have revealed no charges will be filed over the death of a 75-year-old Tim Hortons customer, who died following a bust-up with a drive-thru manager.

Anita Grayson suffered a fatal flare-up of congestive heart failure following the May 13 fight in the Fort Wayne coffeehouse – and her death sparked an investigation as authorities initially struggled to rule whether it was accidental or a homicide.

Allen County prosecutors on Friday revealed no charges would be filed, clearing any staffers of wrongdoing, according to a report seen by The Post.

Grayson charged into the coffeehouse just after 8 a.m. and berated a 17-year-old staffer upset over her order, prompting the shift manager, 20, to intervene. 

The shift manager put her hands on Grayson in a bid to stop her from reaching the teen worker before being “forcefully shoved,” Fort Wayne investigators said.

The senior then struck the manager on the left side of her nose and she tried to retaliate.

Grayson then grabbed the manager’s face, scratched her and knocked off her glasses before yanking her hair and pulling her to the ground. 

Then, two other Tim Hortons staffers rushed in and tried to pull the pair apart, but Grayson then pulled a clump of hair from the shift manager.

She was then seen putting clumps of hair in her bag before being found unresponsive.

Grayson died from an “acute exacerbation of congestive heart failure” following the altercation, the coroner said.Fort Wayne Police Department

Prosecutors refused to file charges as they said the shift manager was defending her colleague.

…. The manager’s actions “did not exceed what the ongoing struggle reasonably called for,” investigators said.

[Her] “initial intervention is independently justified as defense of a third person,” investigators added.

“She said she thought Grayson was going to attack the minor employee, so she stepped in.

“Under Indiana law, the State cannot proceed unless it can disprove legal justification beyond a reasonable doubt, and on this record it cannot. The current conclusion is that no criminal charges will be filed.”

“The symptoms of congestive heart failure get worse when there is adrenaline flowing in a physical altercation, and then a sudden flare up of the heart failure, which then can lead to symptoms, or hospitalization, and even death,” the coroner said.

Investigators also ruled out homicide after examining all of the evidence and said Grayson didn’t suffer any “significant contributory injuries” as a result of the fight.

“There has been exhaustive investigation and review in the evidence of this case,” Brandenberger said.

“The video was reviewed multiple times by the homicide detectives, by my staff, by the prosecutor, and by the forensic pathologist. Bodycam videos were reviewed. We listened to and transcribed the four 911 calls and multiple meetings.

“After exhaustive review, we could not determine with reasonable certainty that Mrs. Grayson’s death was either natural, or homicide, or accident. 

“Therefore the manner of death that is appropriate to use is undetermined, meaning could not be determined.”

Earlier last month, Grayson’s daughter, Tawnda Grayson, called for the arrest of the Tim Hortons employees involved in the fight, accusing them of being responsible for her mom’s death.

“If our police here would just do what we pay our taxes for them to do, which is protect and serve, we wouldn’t be here,” Tawnda told WANE 15 at a protest following the incident. “Y’all have to lock them up, y’all don’t understand. My mother is gone… I want justice for my mom.”

“You should not enter a coffee shop for a coffee and a doughnut and come out unalived. That is diabolical,” she told WPTA.

“That’s the elderly lady. That’s not how we treat our senior citizens. We be careful with them. We make sure that they’re all right. We don’t jump on them and attack them. And scare them to death.”

Regrettably, Ms. Grayson did not specify which particular taxes she actually pays to ensure that customers who enter restaurants to attack its employees don’t come out “unalived”. But of course, because every day is pay day in some communities (and just possibly because wrongful death damages come tax-free) Grayson’s family has hired self-promoting, ambulance-chasing civil rights attorney Ben Crump to pursue potential litigation. Here’s the late, unlamented Mr. George Floyd’s lawyer in action:

Things are so batshit crazy these days that I had to fact check to make sure the Bee hadn’t invented a Snopes investigation: they didn’t, Snopes did

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The Original:

The follow up:

And the actual Snopes “investigative report”:

A rumor that New York City's government-run grocery stores announced they would allow anyone to buy groceries as long as they have "a special mark on hand or forehead" spread in August 2026.

For example, a Facebook user claimed on Aug. 4, 2026 (archived), "Government-run stores to allow anyone to buy groceries as long as they have special mark on hand or forehead." The caption of the post read, "We strongly urge everyone to participate." The post's image showed a woman at a grocery store with "666" — a number traditionally associated with the Antichrist or Satan — on her forehead.

The story spread as some people — including Elon Musk — amplified a false claim that shopping at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's city-run grocery stores would require an ID. Some users seemed to interpret the rumor that the grocery stores — projected to open in late 2027 — would require some kind of special physical marking to shop as true. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the claim.

To investigate the rumor's legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Bing. If such an announcement had really happened, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence. 

That was not the case. We did not find any credible reporting about New York City grocery stores requiring any kind of physical marking to shop for groceries.

We identified the rumor's original source: a social media page and website, The Babylon Bee, that described the scenario about the fictional announcement as satirical.

The Babylon Bee first shared the rumor on its website on Aug. 4, 2026 (archived). The Babylon Bee is a satirical site that has originated many claims we've investigated — its About Page reads: 

The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.

Neither the story nor the post, contained any indication that the post was meant as satire, though the bio of The Babylon Bee Facebook account read, "Fake news you can trust."

We reached out to The Babylon Bee for its response to the fact the rumor did not contain any satire label and that some people mistook the satirical story as real news. We will update this story if we receive a response.

Gold bars for Democrats

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En Banc DC Circuit Reinstates Funding Of The Most Corrupt Program Ever Enacted

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian:

I recognize that there could be many contenders for the title of the “Most Corrupt Program Ever Enacted.” However, I challenge any reader, or anyone else for that matter, to name any program in the vast federal handout universe more corrupt that the so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that was created by the Orwellian-named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, § 60103, and codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7434.

If you have somehow forgotten about this program, it is the one that was the subject of a famous Project Veritas recording, made during the interim between President Trump’s second election in November 2024 and his inauguration in January 2025. In the December 2024 video, an EPA “special advisor” named Brent Efron described a rush in the Biden EPA’s last days to commit huge amounts of funds to friendly non-profits in a way to completely avoid oversight and to make them difficult for the incoming Trump people to claw back. Efron characterized what was going on as “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”

Upon entering office, the Trump people set out to and then did identify the funds in question — about $20 billion — and promptly rescinded the grants. Plaintiffs went to the D.C. District Court, and got an injunction mandating disbursement of the funds. Congress then repealed the grants in the One Big Beautiful Bill of July 2025. In September 2025 a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld the rescission of the grants, and held that the only remedy of the grant recipients would be to seek contractual damages in the Court of Claims. A rare victory for the taxpayers? Not so fast. The plaintiff grant recipients asked for en banc review from the entire D.C. Circuit, and on August 4 the full D.C. Circuit mostly re-instated the original District Court injunction mandating distribution of the funds.

The vote of the judges in the D.C. Circuit is almost completely along party lines, and illustrates the extent to which the Democratic-appointed judges will uphold anything, no matter how corrupt, to support their team.

From the beginning, the label of “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund” in this statute was the thinnest of cover stories to justify vast handouts to Democratic Party insiders with little to no knowledge, ability, or experience in actually reducing “greenhouse gases.” An EPA page on this subject reveals the extent to which the program was no more than an excuse to hand out billions to party insiders in the waning days of the lame duck administration. The three biggest grant recipients in question, and the amounts of their grants, were: Climate United Fund ($6.97 billion), Coalition for Green Capital ($5.0 billion), and Power Forward Communities ($2.0 billion). Here is some background (from the EPA page) on these three entities:

  • “The Coalition for Green Capital had only expended $1.42 million in 2023 before receiving a $5 billion award from EPA.” 

  • “Power Forward Communities [that would be Democrat darling, Stacey Abrams —FWIW] had reported a total of $100 for both “total revenue” and “net assets” in its 2023 tax return – the year before receiving a $2 billion grant from EPA.” 

  • Climate United Fund’s CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, and multiple board members were high ranking administration officials during the Obama and/or Biden administrations.

  • Coalition for Green Capital’s CEO had been a senior advisor at the Department of Energy during the Obama administration, before becoming New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s “Energy Czar.” A senior Biden administration energy advisor left to join the Coalition for Green Energy’s Board as it was applying for its grant.

  • Power Forward Communities’ CEO had served as CEO of Fannie Mae during the Obama administration. Multiple other senior executives had also been high ranking officials in the Obama administration.

And there’s plenty more where that comes from.

The initial D.C. Circuit panel decision, written by Judge Naomi Rao, outlines the machinations that the Biden people went through to try to make it as difficult as possible for the incoming Trump administration to claw back the money from the Democrat insiders. Remember as you are reading this that this takes place in December 2024 and January 2025, after Trump has been elected:

The grant agreements have an unusual structure. Typically, grant funds are held by the U.S. Treasury and disbursed incrementally as grantees use the funds for program purposes. EPA structured these grants with a middleman that would hold the funds as a “financial agent” of the United States. According to EPA, this was the first time the federal government used a financial agent, as opposed to Treasury, to carry out this kind of grant program. Treasury entered a Financial Agency Agreement (“FAA”) with Citibank. . . .

The month before President Trump’s inauguration, EPA modified the grant agreements—with no apparent consideration from the grantees—to make it more difficult for the government to terminate the grants. The week before the inauguration, EPA amended the ACAs to require Citibank to “continue to disburse funds” to the grantees, even if the government exercised its right of exclusive control, if the funds are “associated with financial obligations ‘properly incurred’” before the government exercised its right.

The Biden people had tried to make it so that the money would be gone and unrecoverable — like gold bars at the bottom of the ocean — by the time the Trump people figured out what was going on. But new EPA Administrator Zeldin very promptly told Citibank to freeze the money, and then Congress repealed the grants in the OBBB in July 2025.

So what is even the argument that the money must be disbursed at this point? The D.C. Circuit’s en banc ruling is a one-page summary order that does not provide any reasoning.

A commenter on Menton’s article, an E Olson, offers this, which I think sums it up nicely:

I've wondered for years how all these NGOs and activist groups (aka "peaceful" protesters) got so much money for activities that were generally not popular with anyone except the most radical Left 20%. Yes, there were a few George Soros types providing some money, but not nearly enough for all the endless lawfare; brick and camping equipment deliveries, and bus charters for "peaceful" protesters; endless luxury travel to various climate/transgender/open-border conferences and workshops; and huge overhead from bloated/over-paid administrators and office rent. The only parties with enough cash to keep those operations going was the US Government run by a bureaucracy that is 99% Democrat whether Republicans control Congress and/or the White House or not, and the Chinese and Russian governments who are always happy to sow dissent and chaos against the only country powerful enough to curb their aggression.

The Biden Administration's last minute money tossing was to keep the whole Democrat activist funding going long enough to provide nice employment and walking around money for Democrat operatives until another Democrat resides in the White House and/or Democrats take control of Congress and can keep the gravy train going - and Democrat judges are the last line of defense against Trump's serious efforts to take away the only source of Democrat financial support and activism. And what should gall ever faithful Democrats the most, is that none of this climate/trans/Gaza/open-border/defund the police activism is actually about "solving" those "problems", but is instead nothing but a corrupt mechanism for keeping Democrat activists well fed and housed when they are out of power.

Fortunately, there’s video:

This keeps up, I could lose my respect for media opinion molders

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I’ve almost never heard of most of the libtard opinionators whose inane posts crop up on various sites I follow, and out of curiosity, I looked this guy up. He’s a nobody, but he does, or did, shape the news the worst part of the country bases its “feelings’ on.

What is Kyle Griffin known for?

AI Overview

Kyle Griffin is an American television news producer for MSNBC and a prominent social media figure. He is best known as a senior/segment producer for programs like The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and The Weekend, and for his massive following on social media where he posts breaking news and political updates

Stalking horse politics

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Joe Biden is suffering as his cancer spreads, and I take no pleasure in that, but, like his senility, his handlers were fully aware he had advanced prostate cancer long before he was put to running for a second term. Clearly, the idea all along was to get hi re-elected and then replaced by the unelectable Kamallawalla Ding Dong. We’ve all known this for at least the past two years, but it’s still galling to know it and yet still have to listen to Democrats wailing about Trump’s “threat to Democracy”.

Here's the thing about prostate cancer screening: a PSA blood test is a standard part of any routine physical for men of a certain age. It's not exotic. It's not hard to order.

Does anyone seriously believe the president of the United States, a man in his eighties surrounded by a full medical team, wasn't being screened for one of the most common cancers in older men? If Biden had cancer developing while he sat in the Oval Office, there are only two explanations. Either his doctors missed it, which would be staggering incompetence for a team charged with monitoring the health of the most powerful autopen in the world, or the Bidens knew and weren’t going to reveal the diagnosis until after the election.

In fact, last year, medical ethicist and former Obama health advisor Dr. Zeke Emanuel strongly implied that Biden's prostate cancer likely developed years before the public was told. He also said that he believes that the Biden White House would almost certainly have caught it while he was still in office.

Jill Biden, 75, may have answered that question without meaning to. She recently told radio host Kelly Ripa that while the Bidens were still living in the White House, she noticed her husband getting up to use the bathroom as often as seven times a night. She said she reported it to White House physicians at the time and believed they had resolved it. No one can honestly believe a medical team informed of that symptom, in a man Biden's age, didn't think to run a PSA test. They had to know. Even that story is a change from the original story. Last year we were told that Joe Biden had been diagnosed only after experiencing symptoms "in recent weeks." Now she's describing well-known warning signs she observed a full year before they left office.