Should the P&Z really have the authority to control the placement of a single tree on private property?

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I’m not saying that it doesn’t, under our zoning rules, just asking whether it should. Everyone loves tree huggers, but perhaps they should restrict their arboreal affections to their private lives and actions, rather than impose them on the public.

P&Z Says No to Removing Oak Tree from Approved Landscape Plan at 40 West Way

At their Sept 15 meeting, the Greenwich Planning & Zoning commission discussed a proposed modification to a previously approved landscape plan that was part of a 2025 approved application to demolish and existing house and build a new 7,559 square foot single family residence as at 40 West Way in Old Greenwich.

The applicant wanted to cut down a 24″ diameter tree located 20 feet from a sea wall, ten feet above sea level.

….

The applicant included a letter from Connecticut arborist Dan Holmes who said the tree was exposed on three sides with the “potential for catastrophic failure due to strong winds.”

The arborist said a concern was that the tree leaned toward the sea wall and might put pressure on it.

“With increasing storms along the coast, this will likely lead to failure with the potential for structural damage and harm to human life if not dealt with prior to construction completion,” Holmes added in his letter.

…. P&Z commission Chair Margarita Alban said, “It’s not that you haven’t convinced us. It’s that neither your arborist or our tree warden cited there being a danger.”

“The tree is alive,” said P&Z alternate Brooks Harris. “It’s not in danger of dying. It’s a healthy tree. It’s leaning out toward the water. It hasn’t fallen in previous storms.” [emphasis added to highlight the moron effect — ED]

"Bloomberg Climate Fellows" and dark money

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Note to readers: this started off as just a post on CT Attorney General William Tong’s collaboration with Bloomberg’s global warming group and the placement of its une-elected, unannounced employees in Tong’s office, but each time I looked up one referenced NGO, I found more and more interlocking ties; and the more I dug, the more I found. None of this is particularly new, but it’s been an interesting early morning project.

This is all far more than most (all?) of you will want to read, but the basic takeaway is that when you hear the claim that it’s the evil Koch brothers and their “dark money” that’s ruining the world, know that their money is dwarfed by the funding of the left by not just by the boogey man George Soros and his son, but by people like Swiss billionaire, Wyoming resident Hansjorg Wyss, or Hong Kong-based, Chinese tool Neville Singham (married to the the founder of Code Pink. (A good source for tracking some of this is the Capital Resource Center’s website).

So off we go; stop when you hit the MEGO stage.

Bloomberg-Backed Climate Group Paying Salaries of Democratic State AG Officials Quietly Shuts Down Amid Congressional, Legal Scrutiny

A group housed at the New York University School of Law and backed by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg quietly closed its doors in late August amid congressional scrutiny into its funding and operations. The so-called State Energy and Environmental Impact Center's signature initiative involved placing paid, climate-focused "fellows" in Democrat-controlled state attorney general offices nationwide as those offices sued the oil industry and other energy providers.

….[P]rior to its closure, the center was coming under increased pressure for effectively paying the salaries of state law enforcement agencies that were pursuing lawsuits in line with the center's priority of going after energy providers.

…. The disappearance of the center comes as it faced multiple congressional and state-level investigations over alleged ethics issues related to its funding and its practice of paying the salaries of officials it placed in state attorney general offices. Media reports and lawmakers often referred colloquially to those officials as "Bloomberg fellows" because Bloomberg helped found the center in 2017 with two seed grants worth $2.8 million each. Tax filings show that Bloomberg provided the grants through his eponymous charity, the Bloomberg Family Foundation—one of the country's most influential charities—that focuses on climate activism.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opened an investigation into the center last year, stating that its activities "raise questions as to whether participating state attorneys general are acting on independent judgement to best serve the interests of their states' citizens."

"The Bloomberg-NYU program effectively offers states partisan money from a billionaire to carry out official functions of their offices," the panel wrote at the time. Bloomberg, it continued, "disguises his donations as 'philanthropy'" and uses the impact center as a mechanism "to skirt legislative bodies and effect partisan policy."

In a statement to the Free Beacon, the Oversight Committee's chairman Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.) said he remained concerned that the center "undermined public integrity and pushed radical Democrat policies that increase energy costs for Americans, despite billing itself as ‘nonpartisan.’"

"The Committee is glad to see that this center will no longer be in operation," he added.

Months after Comer initiated his investigation, a group of Wisconsin State Senate leaders opened their own investigation into their state's attorney general for employing a "special attorney general" whose $90,000 a year salary was paid for by the center.

The Wisconsin senate also created a committee to coordinate the investigation. "Outside influence from highly self-interested sources is unacceptable," that committee's chair, Wisconsin State Senate president Mary Felzkowski (R.), said at the time.

In addition to that probe, two Wisconsin groups that represent dairy farmers sued the state's attorney general over his office's arrangement with the center, arguing it gives the center "unique, insider access and influence over DOJ’s work on agricultural and other environmental issues." The February 2025 complaint suggested that the center's fellow had coordinated enforcement actions Wisconsin had taken against dairy farmers. An oral ruling in that case is scheduled for later this month, according to court records.

Overall, since its founding, the center has placed "climate fellows" in attorney general offices in Washington, D.C., and at least 10 states nationwide, including Minnesota, Maryland, and New York [and CT — Ed]. It has exclusively hired fellows to work for Democrats.

The officials it has placed in the state offices have worked on actions targeting the oil and gas industry, favoring wind and solar development, and opposing the Trump administration’s energy agenda.

The Free Beacon reported last year, for example, that Lauren Cullum, the center fellow embedded in the Washington, D.C., attorney general's office, has been behind a number of the office's high-profile climate-related actions since she was hired in 2022. Cullum, whose official title is special assistant attorney general, was listed as a prosecutor on multiple environmental justice lawsuits targeting chemical companies and has represented Washington, D.C., in federal comment letters arguing in favor of green energy initiatives.

And the Free Beacon later reported that the center had expanded by placing fellows in state-level public service commissions, oft-overlooked agencies that regulate utility companies and permit energy infrastructure like pipelines and power plants. That development suggests the center and its funders sought to play a more active role interfering with traditional fossil fuel infrastructure development at the local level.

The center's advisory council, meanwhile, included the CEO of a major wind energy developer and the vice president of the green energy industry group the American Clean Power Association, an archived copy of its website shows. Green energy interests stood to gain from the state-level work conducted by center fellows.


AI Overview

The State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law placed paid "climate fellows"—operating as special assistant attorneys general—in the District of Columbia and at least 10 states.

Placements by Location

  • District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.)

  • Connecticut

  • Delaware

  • Illinois

  • Maine

  • Maryland

  • Massachusetts

  • Minnesota

  • New Mexico

  • New York

  • Oregon

  • Washington

  • Wisconsin

    - Governors' Wind Energy Coalition 

As for Tong in particluar:

AI Overview (with its standard liberal tilt)

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong actively collaborates with the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center to challenge rollbacks of federal environmental rules, oppose utility rate increases, and defend clean energy initiatives.

Key Collaborative Actions & Legal Work

  • Challenging Utility Costs: AG Tong filed briefs opposing attempts by utilities like Eversource to pass unvetted and unapproved storm-recovery costs onto everyday ratepayers. [1]

  • Defending Clean Energy: He joined multi-state coalitions and legal efforts to protect offshore and onshore wind developments—such as fighting stop-work orders on the Revolution Wind project—and challenged federal freezes on renewable energy reviews. [1, 2]

  • Pushing Back on EPA Rollbacks: Tong co-led multi-state comment letters and lawsuits challenging the EPA's deregulatory actions, attempts to rescind vital endangerment findings, and rollbacks of carbon pollution standards for power plants

  • Protecting State Funding: He successfully fought unlawful federal caps on state energy program reimbursements to safeguard local clean-energy funding and keep utility bills affordable.

Tong also collaborates with the “New Venture Fund” in his various lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Who is the New Venture Fund? A branch of the dark money, for-profit organization Arabella Advisors, which in November 2025 transferred its assets and employees to “Sunflower Services”.*

AI Overview of The New Venture Fund

The New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity administered and managed by the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Arabella Advisors. [1, 2, 3]

Key Details Behind the Organization

  • Administration: It is part of a prominent network of left-leaning "dark money" fiscal sponsors managed by Arabella Advisors, which provides operational support, staffing, and management. [1]

  • Leadership: The organization is led by President Lee Bodner and overseen by an independent board of directors. [1, 2, 3]

  • Function: Founded in 2006, it operates as a fiscal sponsor, meaning it acts as an administrative umbrella (handling legal, HR, and accounting) to incubate and manage public interest, conservation, and advocacy projects without disclosing individual underlying donors.

  • Funding: It draws massive financial support—raising close to $1 billion annually—from major grant-making foundations and anonymous contributors.

*Sunflower Services:

In November 2025, Arabella Advisors officially closed down and transitioned its entire fiscal sponsorship and administrative services business into a newly formed Public Benefit Corporation called Sunflower Services. [1, 2]

➡️ The Rebrand & Transition

  • Why the change happened: Arabella Advisors faced years of intense GOP-led congressional investigations into its multibillion-dollar progressive "dark money" network. The firm took a massive financial blow in mid-2025 when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—one of its most high-profile clients—quietly cut ties and halted grants to the Arabella-managed funds.

    [1, 2, 3, 4]

  • The New Structure: To distance the network from the "radioactive" Arabella brand, the company dissolved. More than 200 of Arabella’s operational and administrative staff were moved directly into Sunflower Services. [1, 2]

  • Owned by the Funds: Unlike Arabella Advisors (which was an independent for-profit consultancy), Sunflower Services is directly owned and financed by the nonprofits themselves—specifically with the New Venture Fund serving as the lead investor alongside the Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund. [1, 2]

Critics and watchdog groups note that while the network adopted a "sunnier," less controversial name, the fundamental system of funneling massive, anonymous donations into progressive advocacy projects remains functionally the same. [1, 2]

And so on and so forth.

Well, she's a communist socialist, so why not? It's what they do

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Democratic Socialist Says Conviction for Stealing Food Stamps Qualifies Her to Serve As Mayor

What's going on in Denver, Colorado? In July, a 15-term incumbent Democrat lost the Democrat primary for Congress to Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old Democratic Socialist from Ethiopia whom Hasan Piker backed. She was fired from her law firm for publicly calling them out for not supporting Palestine after October 7. The New York Post says that Kiros is expected to cruise in the general election.

Now we have a Democratic Socialist candidate for Denver mayor who says that her stealing food stamps actually qualifies her for the office.

The Free Beacon reports:

Denver socialist and city councilwoman Shontel Lewis said she's qualified to serve as the city's mayor because she was convicted of stealing food stamps, a crime she said made her familiar with "navigating all the ills of poverty."

Lewis, the Denver Democratic Socialists of America's pick for mayor, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in 2008 after stealing thousands of dollars in public benefits by using her position with the Colorado Department of Human Services East Food Stamp Office to reissue Electronic Benefit Transfer cards intended for others to her roommate and herself. She was sentenced to 18 months of probation and later said she paid full restitution.

So she went from the food stamp office to city council and now hopes to be Denver's next mayor.

And very much related to the post below ...

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Net Zero Turns Western Countries Into Chinese Satrapies

David Strom:

The UK is deindustrializing, and has tied itself to China in more ways than one due to its foolish NetZero energy policies. 

Despite this obvious fact — the UK has the highest energy costs in the industrialized world for electricity used in industry, and ranks near the top for household electricity costs — the headlong rush to implement NetZero hasn't abated. As with Germany, the powers-that-be are determined to sacrifice their citizens and their economy to the climate gods. 

The Telegraph lays out another problem. On top of the destruction of the UK economy and the immiseration of the citizenry, the UK is handing over one of the most powerful economic, political, and potentially military tools to a potentially hostile power: China. 

China has a stranglehold on the "green energy" business, and recent revelations demonstrate how powerful that can be. China has implanted chips in its electric cars and solar panels that "phone home," and likely has the ability to manipulate or shut off these vital tools should it ever wish to. 

And it's building all these "green" products using fossil fuel energy, so all the UK is doing is exporting its carbon emissions from its own shores to China, meaning that even if they achieve "NetZero," it's only an accounting trick, not a reduction in worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. 

Standing on the north Kent coast, near Faversham, its hundreds of thousands of panels stretch as far as the eye can see, covering the equivalent of 500 football pitches.

The 370-megawatt scheme is the biggest of its kind in Britain, generating enough power for some 100,000 homes on sunny days.

It is one of a number of mega-projects springing up as part of the push towards net zero, with Quinbrook, the developer, saying it supports “growth, jobs and cheaper power for UK households”.

However, another trend that Cleve Hill typifies is less remarked upon by its owners: the spread of Chinese technology through Britain’s power system.

According to planning documents and photographs, the project’s 550,000 panels were produced in China, by Trina Solar, along with its battery systems and solar inverters (made by CATL and Huawei, respectively).

This is not unusual. China has a vice-like grip on global supply chains, producing almost 90pc of panels and controlling even bigger shares of mid-level manufacturing.

But according to critics, the scheme underlines how Britain’s rush towards clean power risks giving Beijing critical leverage over the UK energy system, because China provides masses of cheap solar panels, minerals, batteries and electric vehicles needed to power it.

Green energy projects were sold as job creators, and indeed they are: jobs in China, not in Western countries. And those jobs are not only a major economic benefit to China. They also give it massive political, economic, and military leverage over countries it is likely to challenge in coming years. 

We've done much the same thing with many of our industries. We rely on China for vital goods such as pharmaceutical manufacturing, so-called "rare earth minerals," and a whole host of vital components without which our economy or society could collapse. 

China's near monopoly on rare earth minerals is a choice; it's not like we don't have plenty here; it's just that NIMBYism and our willingness to take advantage of China's lower environmental standards and the cost savings that implies has handed a vital industry over to our adversary. 

It's a losing proposition on all fronts. China doesn't care about greenhouse gas emissions, whatever they say. Everybody points to their deployment of "green energy" as proof that they do, but a quick glance at its rapid expansion of coal energy and its massive greenhouse gas footprint gives the lie to that claim. It's an advertising expense, not a green energy project. 

Meanwhile, the UK is deindustrializing, becoming dependent on foreign and especially Chinese infrastructure, vulnerable to blackmail, and impoverishing its citizenry. All for virtue-signaling points. 

It's a phenomenon duplicated almost everywhere in Western countries. Subsidized industries are doing well; politicians point to "clean, cheap" energy that is neither, and the economy is hollowing out. 

Here's a perfect way for Maine's Global Warmists to show their comittment to saving the world, and they can do it for just $4.95 a month.

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That’s for the first 250 kilowatt-hours; the average residential monthly usage, according to CMP, is 550 kWh,so Greenies would have to put up another $8.95 for the next 250 to get close to their consumption. $13.90 extra per month. According to this promotional flyer, 4,000 customers have stepped up, out of 670,000 households, so there’s plenty of room for more. My guess÷ They might get another 500 individuals willing to put their money where their mouths are, although I suppose the offer to have a seedling planted on their behalf might draw in another half-dozen or so.

That few?

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UK Whistleblower: 99 percent of Asylum Claims Are Fake

So, about the same rate as ours, then.

Only one in 100 asylum claims are genuine, according to a whistleblower who has revealed widespread fraud and dysfunction in the system. 

The Home Office official, who has worked for years as a decision-maker on asylum and has assessed thousands of claims, said asylum seekers from certain countries use the “same script” in what he and colleagues describe as “package claims”. 

He said he had encountered a large number of Iraqi Kurds claiming asylum who said they had been in a relationship with the daughter of the prime minister of the Kurdistan region. The official said it had become a “running joke” among colleagues that the number of Iraqi Kurds who said they were involved with the daughter was in the “hundreds”.

He also said that “hundreds” of claims from Pakistanis were based on the assertion that they were in fear of their lives in their home country because of their gay relationship with the same man who had provided letters supporting their claims. 

The source also disclosed suspicions about large numbers of Bangladeshi claimants purporting to be dissidents of the former governing party, which is now banned, even though they were unable to provide basic information about the group. 

Related:

UK ‘Charity’ Helps Adult Migrants Pretend to Be Kids

An alleged charity based in Britain is helping aliens who move to Europe pretend they are minors, even though they are in fact adults. It’s just another illustration of how so-called charities and NGOs across the West are facilitating crime and sabotaging the countries where they operate.

The Telegraph tends to be pro-mass migration, favoring the UK government policy, but even The Telegraph conducted an investigation into a “British asylum charity,” Care4Calais, that in multiple cases vouched for illegal aliens who claimed to be minors when courts or judges later assessed them to be much older. 

One particularly ridiculous case involved an Ethiopian man in his early to mid-20s whom a Care4Calais volunteer claimed was 17 because he didn’t like making decisions and didn’t know how to shave. Judge Sarah Grey pointed out that the man had a receding hairline, very thick facial hair, and a muscular, mature build. A lack of responsibility is not automatically a symbol of being teenaged, especially from someone moving to a new country explicitly to exploit the system. 

Notably, almost 17% of taxpayer-funded benefits recipients in Britain are foreigners, according to UK Benefits. The Express reported that 19% of UK arrests between 2021 and 2025 were foreigners, while 80% of train thefts, 39.6% of violent crimes, and 36.6% of sexual offenses were due to “migrants.” Lack of responsibility seems to be a feature of “refugees” and “migrants,” especially Muslim males.

…. Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, acknowledged that the Charity Commission did need to investigate Care4Calais. “If male illegal immigrants in their 20s get away with pretending to be under 18 and are then placed with teenage girls in schools, the risks are obvious,” he said. "Care4Calais’ activity is borderline illegal and certainly not charitable. Care4Calais actively supports illegal immigration, and the Charity Commission should investigate them and shut them down.”

Of course, Philp did not admit that the whole issue is that if you can’t trust these foreigners to be in your schools, you also can’t trust them to be in your country. Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, was more honest when he insisted that Care4Calais is “aiding and abetting the mass invasion of unvetted males into Britain.”

THEN you're free to kill him

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Chutzpa: The man who murders both his parents in cold blood and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

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