But the Democrats will never admit it

Tea Party folks are mainstream.

The Tea Party movement is beyond the pale no more.

It is now safe for metropolitan Americans to say—without fear of pillory, or of being waved away as wing-nuts—that the Tea Partiers are not a bilious, lunatic, unschooled, racist rabble out to sabotage our first African-American president, but are, instead, passionate, educated, middle-aged, middle-class and relatively prosperous critics of the Obama administration.

Permission to cease fire, and to refrain from abuse, has been granted by The New York Times, which—over a year after the Tea Party movement began to make its distinctive imprint on American politics—has finally mustered the decency to put aside its reflexive distaste for the movement, and bestirred itself to enquire (by way of a poll) into the precise demography and ideology of Tea Partiers.

I have Demmerkrat friends – Hell, I share an office with one – who have convinced themselves that all this Tea Party nonsense is a racist reaction to our first black president. What they don’t get, but they will in November, is that our anger and outrage has nothing to do with the race of our President, and everything to do with Republican and Democrat disdain for wage earning, tax paying American citizens.

So what’s all this about?

White House complains about blog post saying Supreme Court potential nominee is gay. No one cares about this stuff anymore. Justice Sotomayor has a female partner and no one, so far as I know, cared two bits about it – there are those of us who don’t like her politics, but that’s another matter and irrelevant now – she’s on the bench for life. So why the defensiveness about Elena Kagan? I’m pretty sure America has moved past this nonsense, so I’m curious why the White House is trying to make it an issue. (The blog post in question was positive)

UPDATE: Here’s another conservative lawyer who thinks it’s a liberal problem.

Crime in Greenwich

All teasing aside, Greenwich is one very safe town. I found this nifty website that breaks it down by neighborhood, and you’ll see, if you click on the various sites, that Byram has a crime rate just about identical to my own beloved Riverside. Basically, if you want a life pretty much free of criminals, come to Greenwich. And I credit our police force for that. They do an excellent job.

UPDATE: It occurs to me to add that our police keep the wolves away – Greenwich itself is a community of great, law-abiding citizens, for the most part (we’ll avert our eyes from our Wall Street workers) so between them and our police, we have a nice thing going. May it be ever thus.

Where was all this when I was a student?

9th Grade math teacher taking her students to bed, now LSU firing a professor for being too tough. I want a do-over!

Secession from Connecticut?

Hardly likely, since we’d need the approval of Hartford, and they’ll never let go of their golden goose, but here’s an interesting article on past attempts from around the country. No, I think the only way to tell Hartford to screw off is to move out – Texas?

Cover your ass

John Paulson huge Democrat donor. Of course, so is the corporation, Goldman Sachs, but they’ll be getting off with a minor wrist slap; beloved individuals won’t see the dark side of the law, ever.

Wanna live next to Hillary?

875 King street, Chappaqua, NY

Neither does a friend of mine, I guess, because he’s put his house up for sale. $885,000 plus, what, $100,000 in taxes? (just kidding,W) Still, good-looking house, nicely renovated and priced at around Havemeyer homes, with better schools. Not a bad deal and no, I’m not plugging for a commission here.

It’s incidents like this that make Byram a hard sell

Gunmen rob teen at Western Junior High. How am I supposed to recommend this area to young families? I don’t try.

Kevin Horner, 18, of 21 Harold Ave., Greenwich; Trevor Lattimore, 19, of 70 Ford Place, Bridgeport; and Toney Jordan, 22, of 42 Merrell Ave., Stamford, were charged with third-degree robbery and third-degree conspiracy to commit robbery.

Lattimore had the victim’s cell phone, police said. Gray said he could not comment on whether a gun was found on any of the suspects. The iPod was not found, police said.

Police do not believe there is any reason for residents in the area to be overly concerned about what they call an isolated incident. Gray said the wooded path behind the school is a place people use to walk and jog on.

Two of the suspects taken into custody Wednesday night have criminal records.

We need more of this, not less

Foreclosures jump. Clear out the inventory, let new owners in, let old owners move on with their lives. So far, everything Obama’s doing is hindering this process and delaying a new start.

Jews for Reagan?

Well not quite, but this once solid Democrat block seems to be slowly awakening to the fact that Obummer and his crowd really don’t er, like them.

This looks like a good deal, even with the fake clouds

4 Chateau Ridge

This house off Porchuck has been for sale for five long years – it started at $3.795 and has dropped ever so slowly since but today it’s down to $2.250, well below its assessed value of $2.579. It’s got 6,900 square feet, an indoor pool, two acres of land and is pretty close to town – just off the Merritt on Round Hill Road. I think it’s priced right, now.

From redneck idiots to elitists in one day

From InstaPundit:

CAN I CALL ‘EM OR WHAT? (CONT’D) Yesterday, noting new survey data on Tea Partiers, I commented: “Old spin — they were dumb ignorant hillbillies. Predicted new spin: Just a bunch of overeducated fatcats!”

The old left is scared to death – just ask Fudrucker.

(I picked up on this story two days ago, Glenn, if you’re keeping score).

SEC and Stanford: Fox in the hen house

Seems as though the SEC enforcement head in Texas, who could have nabbed Ponzi scammer Allen Stanford years ago, was in his pay.

The SEC Inspector General said in a report released Friday that it was referring the former head of the SEC’s enforcement office in Fort Worth, Texas, to the Texas and Washington D.C. bar associations. The report found the employee, “who played a significant role in multiple decisions over the years to quash investigations of Stanford,” later sought to represent Stanford once he left the SEC.

Price it, sell it

302 W. Lyon Farm

This unit sold for $1.085 million in 1998 and, a few years ago, could have commanded a lot more than that. But Lyon Farm prices are tanking and the sellers here smartly priced it at $975,000. Twenty-nine days later, they have a contract

Here’s a surprise

32 Spezzano Drive

After two years and a price cut from $1.189 to $975, this NoPo house has a contract.

Which is fine, but down at the end of that same street is number 10, a modular that, while butt-ugly on the outside, is not at all bad inside, twice the size of this one and has a great back yard. It’s in its second foreclosure (the builder went down, then the lender) and is ostensibly asking $1.690, but it’s going to go in the low $900′s, eventually. I’d have pursued it, not #32.

10 Spezzano

So, how’s that market going?

Realtors are pounding their chests about the resurgent market so I thought you might like some actual facts:

We have seen 19 single family residences go to contract so far this month, with just three asking (not necessarily getting) over $5 million. The same period in 2006 saw 46 contracts.

Just so you know.

Bidding war!

6 Guinea Rd

This was a nice house, but set in a swamp. It came on in March, 2007 at $3.6 million and (gasp!) failed to sell. 1000 days and innumerable price cuts later, it was sliced to $2.050 million and found two buyers. The winner paid $2.085, still below the assessment of $2.261.

Proving that almost anything in Greenwich will still sell, so long as its price is right.

And who’s behind the Goldman scam? John Paulson!

This is the “genius” Alan Greenspan, his employee and lackey, praises. I’m not impressed.

UPDATE: Henry Blodget (who should know) says an employee will be tossed under the bus, GS will write a big check, and all will go on as before. Sounds right ( accurate)  to me.

You may want to summer-rent locally this year

The baby volcano erupting in Iceland has, three times out of three, triggered a far bigger explosion in its neighbor. Reserve a cruise ship tour or book Nantucket, is my advice, because you probably aren’t flying to France this year.

What the F**?

The story below on Goldman Sachs has my blood boiling. I grew up with a father who worked on Wall Street (Lee, Higgins before WWII, White, Weld & Co. after)  who had the highest integrity of any man I knew. But not higher than his colleagues and friends on Wall Street – these guys had class, so what the hell happened? My dad had an MBA from Columbia, circa 1929 (great timing, guy) but most of his friends didn’t – it wasn’t considered a career advancement in that era, so is it the business schools that corrupted these people? I don’t know, but something has gone wrong down there.