Congress, Occupied: Occupy D.C. is one of the only remaining encampments in the nation, after crackdowns in other cities, and the protesters in McPherson Square appear to be making the most of it. They filed for permits today to hold an "Occupy Congress" march on the Mall on Jan. 17. But maybe that doesn't go [...]
DCist's Benjamin R. Freed pulls out the details of D.C.'s Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton's personal wealth:
The Post tabulated her personal wealth as $1,697,521 in 2009, good for 176th highest on the list of 518 current and former House members.
Norton's 2009 financial disclosure, obtained from Legistorm.com, shows that in addition to her $174,000 salary, she drew income from [...]
Ezra Klein notes that this really is the worst Congress ever. At least going by public approval: Congress will end the year with an 11 percent approval rating
Poll respondents in Connecticut or Idaho may not number this among their reasons for maligning the legislators, but we locals have a pretty hefty new set of grievances [...]
"Today Mayor Vincent C. Gray and D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development Director Crystal Palmer will participate in a series of meetings with cable network executives in New York to attract more cable production to the District. Mayor Gray and Director Palmer also hope to encourage network executives to develop programming for [...]
Congress continues its race to the bottom:
If you put nutritious broccoli and kale on top of a chocolate-glazed donut, can the concoction be considered equivalent to a vegetable serving?
This is the same logic that Congress is about to incorporate into a new law as it gets ready to vote on legislation that would, among other things, [...]
Your Papers, Please, D.C.: The United States is tied up in two wars, and the unemployment rate is so high that a drop to 8 percent would be cause for celebration. So naturally, Congress is turning to what's really important—making sure every senior-level D.C. government appointee has never committed "willful engagement in acts or activities [...]
It looks like D.C. may actually be moving toward an idea proposed by an insurance commissioner from the Mayor Anthony Williams administration, and picked up by Mayor Vince Gray earlier this year: The District can serve as a tax shelter for catastrophe insurance companies that currently keep their dollars ($60 billion of them!) offshore in countries like [...]
Some possibly good news for abortion rights activists and D.C. autonomy fans alike: The Senate's 2012 budget bill for the District doesn't include a ban on the city using its own money to fund abortions for low-income women.
Earlier this year, the 2011 federal spending plan outlawed the relatively recent program ... and led to Mayor [...]
The big story for political operatives and reporters yesterday was the back-and-forth between the White House and Republicans in Congress over when, exactly, President Barack Obama would head up to the Capitol to make a speech about getting the economy back on track that the Republicans in Congress would then ignore.
Obama had proposed delivering the [...]
Capital Helmetshare: The rides used by Capital Bikeshare are sturdy and slow as a tank, but that doesn't mean they can't crash—and if they do, your head's just as vulnerable as it would be if you crashed Adrian Fenty's Colnago. So DDOT is giving out helmets to go along with the bikes. Like the bicycles and [...]
Upholding stereotypes of federal Washington—the superficiality, the high school-esque cliques, the general douchiness—isn't easy. But someone's got to do it, and thankfully, The Hill is on the case. Yesterday, the paper unveiled its annual "50 Most Beautiful People" list, a photo-and-profile spread of the Capitol complex's best looking denizens.
The list is mostly young, and heavily [...]
Government Guns: When the District's only federally licensed gun dealership closed in April, it was because of the recession (the store lost its lease), not because of overzealous regulations. But the lack of any licensed shop to register firearms in D.C. left the city vulnerable to legal challenges like the one that got the Supreme Court [...]
This is Not a Test: District residents who are so inclined can sign up for emails or text messages about emergency alerts. (Yes, sometimes the system announces things like the mayor's State of the District address.) Soon enough, though, the alerts will come automatically, unless you opt out; D.C. and New York are the first [...]
The budget deal struck by Congress and the White House last weekend kept D.C. libraries and rec centers open by averting a government shutdown. But it also included policy “riders” that banned the District from spending any of its local budget on abortion and ordered the city to continue a school voucher program. Since federal [...]
D.C. Don't Stand for Democracy City: The good news from Friday night's budget dealing between the White House and Congress was that D.C. libraries, rec centers, and other services—like trash collection—didn't have to close. The bad news was that, once again, Congress has decided to play D.C. Council, with President Obama's blessing. City officials still [...]
