• Yesterday afternoon, City Desk posted the latest WaPo article about the Metro crash, which basically announced that circuits on four of the five lines have failed to detect the presence of trains.  The 6 pm newscasts featured commentary from a variety of concerned commuters and so to quell their concerns, Metro GM John Catoe and Councilman Jim Graham held a press conference announcing that the Post got the story wrong.  The system is safe, says Catoe, and the article is a gross misstatement of facts.  Watch WUSA's interview with Catoe - he could be a dreidel with the way he's spinning this new information.

Swine flu, social networks, and the Secret Service after the jump.  Plus, a new alternative to saving the Nats!

• Swine flu isn't going anywhere soon.  Yet another group of local students from the District and Maryland are quarantined in Beijing after testing positive for H1N1.  Although it sucks that their trip is on hiatus, at least they have access to their Facebook accounts.
• Speaking of social networks, Facebook and Twitter are now too accessible to the general public, so Congress had to make its own. 3121, named after the extension of the Capitol Hill switchboard, will premiere in September and hopes to make communication among staffers more efficient.  Really, it's just a more localized version of any other site, so that you can stalk the hottie in Rep. Whatever's office and make awkward eye contact with your new "friends."
• President Obama granted Dick Cheney's request for a six-month extension of his Secret Service protection.  Apparently he has been concerned with his security and privacy in recent years, and plans on asking for another extension when this one expires.  Because when the federal government is hemorrhaging money, cashing in on a former Vice President's security detail is really an investment in the future.
• And finally, the Nationals might seem like a better team if they had better media coverage.  And who better to help them with their image than Ari Fleisher of Ari Fleisher Sports Communications!  Yep, Bush 2's first press secretary has launched a business to train athletes and teams on how to deal with the media.  He's currently busy promoting the Olympics but maybe he can help our fledgling batters in the future.

First, this just came in from one of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Yahoo groups: Beware of the telephone shysters posing as sales reps for the FBI. No, silly! Not the real Federal Bureau of Investigation. This one's an alleged alarm company peddling “free” security systems. The pitch starts off saying "you live in a high crime statistics area" and offers a free home alarm system in exchange for letting the company put an FBI sign on your lawn. It’s the latest twist in alarm system scams.

AFTER THE JUMP: More on D.C. confidence schemes and Obama's plans to take down abusive consumer lenders.

For weeks, reports of shady looking traveling salesmen have been burning up neighborhood listservs.  More than a few residents reported unnerving visits from alleged alarm company reps going door to door. These guys demand to be let inside homes to see if the systems needed upgrading. Needless to say not too many street-smart District residents have fallen for this one (um, or perhaps we've only heard from the folks who told the grifters to clear off.)

Well, anyway, those ruses are in no way unique. It turns out the country is awash confidence schemes. The Federal Trade Commission says thousands of people have been swindled out of millions of dollars since the economic downturn began. 

Today, the agency announced a crackdown on scammers who have hoodwinked consumers with get-rich-quick plans, imaginary government grants, and fraudulent debt-reduction opportunities, among other things.

The enforcement crackdown involves dozens of cases brought by the FTC, the Department of Justice and law enforcers here in the District and at least 13 states. At today’s press conference, officials even trotted out “a Washington, D.C. job seeker who was conned by a company that made false promises of maintenance and janitorial work.”

I missed the webcast, so I have no more details on our very own District victim. But it sounds like he or she may have been duped by Wagner Ramos Borges, one of several alleged criminal masterminds picked up in the nationwide sweep, officially dubbed: “Operation Short Change.”

Ramos Borges allegedly advertised janitorial jobs in area newspapers and online sites. But once applicants responded, he would trick them into paying $98 apiece for bogus “certified registration number” cards. Those cards were supposed to land them jobs with one of the front companies he operated. But the jobs didn’t exist, officials say.

…

As for the perfectly legal scams run by banks, the Obama Administration is taking them on too. The Department of the Treasury forwarded a proposal to Congress yesterday that would establish a new agency to oversee home mortgages and other consumer lending. Click here for the press release discussing the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The administration says the new outfit would shield consumers from lending abuses like those that led to the financial sector’s current travails.

According to today’s Washington Post, the banking industry is in revolt over the plan, saying it would allow the government to meddle too much into its business; but lawmakers may have a hard time voting against it without looking like corporate sellouts.

Assuming the bill becomes law, plenty of observers see two fronts of possible conflict. First is that the law will set off a frenzy of congressional intervention. To wit, American Prospect's Ezra Klein.

Nope, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton says to LL this afternoon: "I anticipate being able to be able to protect it....In order to do something someone is going to have to introduce a bill or otherwise get something through the Congress. Well, you gotta pass by me on that....I believe I can prevent any bill from moving to the House floor to overturn the bill that was passed yesterday."

What Klein doesn't quite get right is that Congress need not actively "approve" D.C.'s decision. If lawmakers do nothing about the bill for 30 days, it's law.

In fact, no District statute has been actively disapproved by Congress; what is more common is that "riders" are attached to District appropriations prohibiting spending on the controversial legislation---which is what happened when D.C. first passed domestic-partnership laws. The chances of an active disapproval wending its way through a Democratically controlled Congress are slim---but of course LL and others had the same thought on guns and D.C. voting rights.

Norton says the gun issue was a special case, due to the power of the National Rifle Association. "Unfortunately, the gun amendment is controlled by a big lobby that specializes in out-and-out intimidation of members and big donations. There's no such organized lobby against gays or gay marriages....There are a lot of little organizations and a even larger ones, but they don't have the money or the bullying tactics that have been used by the NRA. The NRA stops just short of putting guns at people's heads. It's a classic back-alley bully."

The second conflict is that the law would conflict with the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which essentially prohibits the federal government from recognizing a same-sex relationship as a marriage. That's the hope of "traditional marriage" defender Brian Brown, who did a washingtonpost.com chat yesterday with David Catania.

Here's the text of the language: "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

Seems the questions are: (1) is District law the same as an act of Congress? and (2) does the District count as one of the "various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States"?

Norton says, in both cases, absolutely not: "It's a self-governing jurisdiction....Congress could reassert jurisdiction over the District, but it's delegated that jurisdiction to the District, and I have insisted at least since I've been here that that delegation remain."

Don't count on that argument to satisfy conservative jurists. Once a D.C. gay-marriage law is on the books, expect to see them in court.

"Some D.C. officials said it was ironic that the Senate bill granted the city full representation in the House while also overruling the District's decisions on a key local issue."

With that in mind, the D.C. Police did something unusual yesterday evening. The department started reporting on weapons officers recovered.

The department issued a press release:

"Shortly after 8:00 pm, on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, members assigned to the department’s Sixth District were executing a search warrant in the 3500 block of East Capitol Street, SE. During the execution of this search warrant, two suspects were apprehended without incident and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun with several live rounds of ammunition were recovered. Both suspects in this case were charged with 'Carrying a Pistol Without a License,' among other charges.

At approximately 9:13 pm, on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, members assigned to the department’s Sixth District were conducting a traffic stop in the 4200 block of Edson Place, NE. During the course of their investigation they recovered an assault weapon with several live rounds of ammunition. The suspects in this case were arrested and charged with 'Carrying a Pistol Without a License.'"

Is the D.C. Police trying to send a message to congress?

Tejada lied about buying HGH. But he stated that he had misgivings about using the performance enhancer and threw out the drugs. Prosecutors don't have enough evidence showing that he actually used the drug. So he just lied about buying them.

The Post writes:

"Although not charged with taking performance-enhancing drugs or lying about using them, Tejada nevertheless becomes the latest prominent major leaguer to become ensnared in the steroids scandal hammering baseball."

One interesting note, Tejada's attorney is Mark Tuohey. He's investigated the D.C. Police Department with very mixed results. He's done some lobbying for then-Chief Charles Ramsey. And was a huge baseball booster.

Jason Chaffetz, a Republican about to take Utah's 3rd district congressional seat, says he's not going to support efforts to give D.C. a vote in Congress. So says the Deseret News.

Yeah, yeah---GOP'er against District voting rights; no news there. Why should anyone care what this guy thinks?

Well, the former BYU placekicker is the first member of the Utah delegation to come out against the so-called Davis solution (after now-retired Va. Rep. Tom Davis), which seeks to appease Republican misgivings over handing Democrats an extra House vote by giving the GOP another vote in Utah, which was narrowly screwed out of an extra seat in the last reapportionment. He also replaces a fellow Republican, Chris Cannon, who had supported the Davis bill. (Chaffetz challenged Cannon from the right, running mainly on immigration and garnering George W. Bush's endorsement.)

Chaffetz proffers the constitutional excuse for opposing a congressional vote for the District: "I recognize that taxation without representation is fundamentally unfair. But what should we do? I believe it is possible to give residents of Washington, D.C., a voice without violating the Constitution," he tells the Utah paper, advocating for retrocession. "Giving Maryland an additional seat in the House of Representatives raises no Constitutional questions and gives D.C. residents the representation they seek."

Hmm. So this guy's a constitutional law scholar? A judge, maybe? At least a lawyer? History buff?

Nope. Corporate PR guy.

Flickr photo by wickenden