Is Our Deer Learning?: Maybe it's not too late to change the award-winning designs of some of the new libraries around town. Because, apparently, the local fauna have trouble with lots of windows. A deer crashed through the plate glass in the interim library in Washington Highlands today, shattering the window; the deer had to be put to death, after breaking its jaw. No word on whether it was rushing to return books to avoid an overdue fine. -1

McPherson Square, Preoccupied: Yesterday's deadline for Occupy D.C. to abide by rules banning camping in McPherson Square passed without too much trouble, as many protesters agreed to ditch things like stoves and sleeping gear in order to keep the U.S. Park Police from raiding the site. Today, the Occupiers failed to get a restraining order against the enforcement of the rules—but they did get a promise of advance warning before a bust. Which, among other outcomes, guarantees extensive media coverage if the cops ever do move to clear the park. +2

History Of Fiction: Republican presidential candidate and would-be moon colonizer Newt Gingrich has compared himself to everything from Moses to "a Viking." So it's almost understandable that Post reporter Stephanie McCrummen might have thought Gingrich was referring to another historical figure when he said he was a student of "the Japanese samurai warlord Toranaga." Unfortunately for McCrummen, Toranaga is a character in Shogun, a James Clavell novel published in 1975, not an actual historical figure. Fortunately for the rest of us, the correction noting that fact is quite amusing. +2

Save Us, Peyton Kenobi, You're Our Only Hope: Two seasons ago, the Washington Redskins signed Donovan McNabb amidst great preseason hype. Before the 6-10 2010 campaign was over, McNabb had been benched for Rex Grossman. So the news that the team is now doodling Peyton Manning's name and drawing burgundy and gold hearts on notebooks in Ashburn, Va., doesn't exactly inspire great confidence. Of course, the modern era being what it is, there is already a petition to bring Manning to town and a Twitter feed to promote it, complete with PhotoShopped images of Dan Snyder posing with his new QB. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 38 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 40

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the last title the team won, Super Bowl XXVI. Played at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the game against the Buffalo Bills was never really close, and it ended with a 37-24 Redskins win. Watch the highlights here, and remember the good old days.

There's a phenomenon known on the Internet as the "Streisand effect," which dates to 2003. Singer Barbra Streisand sued, unsuccessfully, to try to keep photos of her beachfront mansion out of a collection of images of the California shore. Streisand sought $50 million in damages for the alleged invasion of privacy. Before she sued, the photos of her house were hidden, fairly anonymously, among about 12,000 pictures in the collection. Afterwards, everyone knew which home was hers. Filing the lawsuit called far more attention to the photos than they would otherwise have received.

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder employed a similar PR tactic this year, when he sued the company that owns Washington City Paper the week before the Super Bowl. (He later added staff writer Dave McKenna as a defendant.) Snyder made a bunch of baseless claims about our story, "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," before eventually abandoning his court case. But it's pretty clear in retrospect that what he should have done, if he really didn't like the piece, was ignore it.

Football is a game of statistics, so let's look at the traffic. From the day the article went online, Nov. 17, 2010, to Feb. 2, 2011, the day Snyder sued, Google Analytics recorded a total of 77,691 clicks on the story. Since then, the story's been viewed a total of 485,703 times (through Dec. 26). By suing us, Snyder helped the story get more than six times the views it had before he filed the suit. (This originally said 60 times, not six.)

Snyder may have realized how much attention he brought to the story; he told the New York Times Magazine in an interview published just before he dropped his suit that it was "possibly" a tactical error. Of course, he also said he never read the story—so apparently he didn't add any pageviews personally to the more than half a million the piece got. Regardless, his legal and PR team fared badly enough in 2011 that it made his football team's on-field performance look pretty good.

Either way, maybe it's time to rename the Streisand effect the Snyder effect—after all, in Internet time, 2003 is ancient history.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery/Illustration by Brooke Hatfield

Hail to the Mittens: If you've bought any Redskins-licensed material or attended an event at FedEx Field recently, you may, indirectly, have been supporting Mitt Romney. Turns out Redskins owner Dan Snyder and his wife, Tanya Snyder, have each given $2,500—the maximum amount allowed by law—to the former Massachusetts governor's presidential campaign. Romney is the only candidate either have contributed to this election cycle. Which means that if the Eagles beat the Redskins on Jan. 1, and Newt Gingrich wins the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Snyder can be a two-time loser that week. -2

MasterCab: Taxi fares are going up in the District next year—but at least now passengers will be able to go into debt to pay for their rides. Along with the fare hike, some fees are being eliminated (like the surcharges for having a suitcase with you), and credit card machines will become mandatory for all cabs. No word on whether the new rules will actually require the taxis to do things like "take calls from far-flung neighborhoods" or "pick up passengers who aren't white." -1

Would You Like That Shrink-Wrapped?: Purchasing larger-than-advisable quantities of basic household goods will soon beeven easier. A deal to bring Costco to the Shops at Dakota Crossing, a retail development planned for the Fort Lincoln area, is basically wrapped up, and construction on the membership warehouse will start soon. The good news: Kirkland branded beer for all! The bad news: The area is currently a marshland, which will have to be paved for the development. -1

Frozen With A Chance Of Continued Frozen: As if anyone needed yet another reason to gripe about the insufferable Sen. Joe Lieberman, he's now come out with a warning that federal workers should expect to continue toiling for their 2010 salaries for quite some time to come. Chances are good the GOP will demand a federal pay freeze be extended in order to help pay for the extension of a temporary payroll tax cut for all workers. Chances are also good Lieberman will do whatever the GOP demands, then lecture everyone on how national security requires it to be done. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 46 Today's score: -5 Today's Needle rating: 41

Earlier today, Events DC, the quasi-governmental body that which now operates the stadium and is putting on the anniversary shindig, released a list of featured guests and expected attendees.

The roster's full of vintage local heroes who were with the Redskins during the fairly glorious 1970s (Brig Owens, Roy Jefferson, and Charley Taylor, among others) and others from the supremely glorious 1980s (Raleigh McKenzie, Doc Walker, George Starke). There's also some lightly remembered folks from the expansion Washington Senators and even a few from the USFL's Washington Federals (Phil Dubois? Buddy Hardeman?), and assorted politicos (Eleanor Holmes Norton and Mayor Vince Gray).

The name that really jumps out from the guest list, however, is one that's not on it: Dan Snyder.

The Redskins owner, of course, brings up how much RFK once meant to him about as often as a baby brings up dinner. And we know how much Snyder loves anniversaries. And it's well known the stadium folks and Snyder's organization have been talking for the last several years about the team making some sort of comeback on these grounds, even if it's just for a new Redskins Park.

Rumors about the Redskins' return to D.C. have picked up ever since Gray and some city councilmembers flew to Florida to inspect the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' training center.

So I was surprised that Snyder's passing up this climactic anniversary function. I asked a source with the party planners if Snyder was invited: "Yes of course he was invited," was the reply.

When I asked Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie, he replied only, "We will have representatives there." Maybe a desire to not raise any eyebrows before a deal with the RFK Stadium people is actually done caused Snyder to not send in an affirmative RSVP. Or, continuing in this French vein: Perhaps he'll be off holidaying on his new-to-him $70 million boat somewhere on the Riviera.

Awesome radio ensued.

Reid went off on Mike Shanahan like nobody with that big a megaphone has ever gone off on the Redskins coach.

The hosts were discussing Shanahan's failure to put a decent quarterback on the field during his time in DC when Reid started throwing haymakers, and didn't stop.

Some highlights from the anti-Shanahan rant*:

The reality of it is, when [Shanahan] opens his mouth, I just stop listening now. He either does something ridiculous, like stake his reputation on two quarterbacks who can't play, or he says he didn't say something he said, or he says he was just saying it at the time just to say it because he has to do that with the media, or he says he did a great job preparing a team that got embarrassed 23-0 in Toronto. He doesn't tell the truth, and when he does say something he actually believes, he's so non-sensical, like he's staking his reptuation on two inept quarterbacks. I...I....I can't respond to someone who doesn't make sense and lies through his teeth!

Even if you just count [the number of quarterbacks Shanahan's failed with here] at three, that's at least two too many, ok? Now, when you talk about him failing at quarterback, I mean look, it is the most important position. I've talked to people who have told me that he truly believes that Beck was better than any quarterback he could take in the draft. Now, a lot of this is his arrogance, ok?  All NFL coaches, Type A personalities, alpha males, those guys are arrogant. That's just the way it is. This guy takes it to kind of unprecedented levels, especially when you consider his last decade in Denver. He missed the playoffs six times, including his final three years. He did a colossally poor job on player personnel. He never could get it right on defense, changed coordinators nonstop. So when you tell me that you've blown it on possibly four and definitely three quartberacks and how can he keep his job, Chad, this is how he keeps his job: Because Dan Snyder did such a collossally poor job for the decade-plus that he ran this team, he has absolutely no choice now but to let this guy have the full five years and try to work it out. Because here's the thing, fellas: If he doesn't give him the five years, he won't even be able to get a guy like Jim Zorn to take this job again. He's got to give him the five years....

My thing is, the drum that I've been banging for weeks is, in year two, there's just simply no reason, with two full free-agent cycles, two full draft cycles, in spite of limitations of the uncapped year and in spite of the lockout, and two full offseasons of trades, that they should simply not be competitive at this point. I mean, they don't have to win all their games. They don't even have to win half of their games. But the product that he's putting out there now on the offensive side of the ball, where he is supposedly one of the best that ever lived, is simply unacceptable. And if it's simply unacceptable in year two, what you're saying to me is there's a fundamental problem in the program. And if there's a fundamental problem in the program, that doesn't necessarilhy mean somebody has to be fired, but it means that at the end of the season it has to be assessed whether he is capable froma player personnel standpoint of doing this on his own. And if he's not, he needs help, and he needs help quickly.

The reality of it is, this guy is one of the all time arrogant guys ever. And you can talk about your system, people say they have injuries and that's why they're not scoring. that's crap. They weren't scoring when they had their full complement of personnel. It's like in the movie 'Rush Hour' when Chris Tucker says to Jackie Chan, 'Do you understand a word that's coming out of my mouth?' The reality of it is, even though he's talking, I hear him say things, but I don't understand a word that's coming out of his mouth."

Can't wait 'til Reid brings that level of heat in his columns.

*A royalty check is headed to The Great Dan Steinberg for infringing his Steinography™ patents. It's way harder than it looks, people!

More fun than actual, courthouse justice: Poetic justice.

One small example of the latter came last week via a sharp report from Huffington Post DC. Legal eagle Arin Greenwood filed a blog post concerning the second-ever challenge to D.C.'s new SLAPP act, the law that forbids plaintiffs from filing weak lawsuits merely to sock defendants with legal fees as punishment for some constitutionally protected speech.

The SLAPP act, of course, was what this publication asked a court to apply to Snyder's lawsuit. We argued that the defamation case was really about damaging a paper that had repeatedly criticized his blunders. In response, Snyder claimed that federal law forbids D.C.'s citizens from adjusting court rules the way citizens in the 50 states can. The ACLU and the city's attorney general, among others, disagreed with the Redskins owner's argument.

Not that Snyder was all alone: One of the big names he got help from earlier in the case was Lanny Davis, a former Clinton administration lawyer more recently known for his work on behalf of several unsavory third-world dictator types. Davis briefly provided PR help to promote Snyder's knuckleheaded case against the paper.

Anyway, imagine our surprise to read in the Greenwood's piece that Davis is now a little guy on the receiving end of his own multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit—this one filed by the 3M corporation, which has accused him of defaming the company and trying to extort money. Davis says that's not true, and is fighting the case in court.

Luckily for Davis, D.C. law provides one nice remedy for small fries who are faced with a legal threat from a giant conglomerate. That's right—the SLAPP law. "There can be no serious dispute that the statements about which 3M complains qualify as 'act[s] in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest,'" Davis' legal team wrote in an October filing.

Which is where the poetic justice bit comes in. 3M, you see, just filed a response that echoes the legal argument pioneered by Davis' old pal, Dan Snyder: The Minnesota firm says the terms of D.C.'s limited home rule mean District lawmakers didn't have the right to pass a SLAPP law, and the court should therefore let the case against Davis proceed.

Oops.

For a lot of reasons, we really don't want to see the SLAPP law overturned. But if the anti-home-rule argument succeeds, undercutting D.C.'s voters and possibly exposing Davis the the years of legal turmoil that a case might entail, he can thank his pal Dan for the assist.

Photo via YouTube

After converting litres to gallons and metric tons to pounds, and assuming I carried all the ones, I determined that even with very limited use of the big boat and Redskins One, his private jet, Snyder throws a lot more bad stuff into the air just through his personal transportation modes than all 80,000 or so solar panels at his team's stadium would take out. (The yacht is owned as part of a group, and Snyder hasn't revealed what his use of the boat will be, so he could be greener than my calculations figured.)

Pick up a copy. Read the story. Hug a tree.

Solar power has been taking some hits from the ecologically minded lately for reasons having nothing to do with Snyder and his boat.

Turns out a huge chunk of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China, a place where environmental regulation is a foreign concept.

Villagers in China's Zhejiang province rioted  a few weeks ago and forced a solar panel plant to shut down after chemical run-off from the facility killed every fish in a nearby lake.

But officials from NRG, the Redskins' partner in the stadium installation, say all the solar panels soaking in sun at FedEx Field come from two American firms, SunPower Corp. and Konarka Technologies, and Schott Solar AG, a German manufacturer.

“None were manufactured in China,” says NRG Energy spokesperson Lori Neuman.

The real shocker for me during my crunching exercise came when I figured out how much it costs just to fill up the gas tanks on the Lady Anne.

The fuel cells hold 55,000 gallons of diesel. Last week, a gallon of diesel was selling for $7.04 US per gallon at the Barcadere Marina in George Town, Cayman Islands, where the boat is flagged. That means just one fill-up would cost nearly $389,000

How many $9 Bud Lights will the Redskins have to sell to get that sum, did you ask?

Well, with what little juice is left in my calculator after the boat story, it looks like: 43,222 game-day beer sales per tank for the Lady Anne, give or take a binge.

Drink up, Skins fans.

Dan Snyder, Yachtsman: Last month, the Washington Post recounted how Redskins owner Dan Snyder, disillusioned after yet another Jim Zorn-era loss, hopped aboard the team's private jet on a lark in the middle of the night to fly off to Colorado to chat with Mike Shanahan, who in due time became his next coach. Well, if Shanahan goes the way of Zorn, Steve Spurrier et al, the owner now has the ability to abruptly seek out talent even farther from home: The Post reports that Snyder is a new owner of the 224-foot Lady Anne, a $70-or-so million "superyacht" and one of the 100 biggest yachts on earth. Attention, coaches who live on distant islands: Send out for breakfast burritos ASAP. +1

No Laws For You! Political comment guy Chuck Thies isn't into the idea of the cyclist protection law floated by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Writing at HuffPostDC, Thies complains: "WABA, though, believes that bicyclists should be assigned to an exceptional class." I'd argue that being a solo bicyclist with only the protection of a helmet and one's skin while surrounded by impatient, steel-encased drivers is fairly exceptional. -2

Dress For Less: The H Street NE corridor may be the place to see gentrification on the march, what with its steady procession of new bars and funky restaurants and other urbanist darlings. But nearby Benning Road is a hotspot for the other new type of vendor entering the District: Suburban chains. The latest newcomer, announced by Mayor Vince Gray this morning: Ross, the discount clothing store. According to the Washington Business Journal, Gray's office says 60 District residents have been hired already. Forty-two were previously unemployed (thereby entitling the firm to benefits under a new city initiative). Here's hoping the benefits mean our new Hagar chinos are even less expensive! +2

Asterisk: New Columbia Heights reports  the Tivoli Giant is handing out fliers advertising that all registers will now be open from 4-8 p.m. daily. One question, though: The fliers include a mysterious asterisk that leads to nowhere. What could it be? All registers will be open when...there are enough people to staff them? We must know! +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 79 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 81

The latest evidence: "Hail the the Redskins," a new, cheaper scatch ticket coming out of the partnership between the team and the Virginia Lottery.

Hail to the Redskins is the third Redskins scratch game in as many years.

The original Redskins scratcher, Redskins Mania, debuted in 2009. In keeping with the Redskins' charge-'em-more! philosophy in the Dan Snyder era, that ticket had a sale price of $20, making it as costly a scratcher as had ever been sold by Virginia Lottery.

The Redskins ticket was also the most expensive of all the NFL-themed scratchers introduced that year, the first year in which the league approved alliances between teams and state lotteries.

Up the road in Baltimore and also in 2009, for example, the Ravens introduced their scratch ticket, Baltimore Ravens Cash Fantasy, and affixed a blue-collarish $5 price on it.

The Redskins $2o ticket flopped and was discontinued after one year.

“We sold about 37 percent of our tickets,” Virginia Lottery spokesperson Jennifer Mullen told me last year. “We discovered the $20 price point was a bit of a barrier.”

Meanwhile, the Ravens ticket immediately became the most successful scratcher in Maryland Lottery history.

While the Ravens continued selling the Cash Fantasy tickets with the same low price in 2010, the Redskins rebooted and partnered with the Virginia Lottery on a new game, Redskins Legacy, trading on the good ol' days Before Snyder, like so many of the team's ventures since Bruce Allen was brought in.

The price on Redskins Legacy was $10, lower but still twice the cost of the Ravens.

Still, no dice. The $10 Redskins Legacy scratcher also closed after just one season this July.

Now there's Hail to the Redskins. The only eye-opening aspect of the new ticket: It costs $5.

Just like the Ravens Cash Fantasy scratcher has all along.

The Ravens ticket is still running strong in its third season.

In a column published in early June, I observed that, "Supply is kicking demand's ass at FedExField."

The ass-kicking continues, despite the Redskins' fabulous start to the 2011 season.

At the time that observation was typed, there was talk of "party decks" replacing unsold season tickets in the upper deck. Thousands and thousands of seats and row upon row of concrete have been removed from the stadium since, but no party decks have yet to materialize.

Yet all sorts of new and increasingly desperate marketing schemes subsequently came out of Redskins Park, including offers of free jerseys and even free extra tickets to the season opener for anybody willing to buy season tickets for 2011.

That first game turned out pretty good for the home team. Yet posters on the team-owned message board, Extremeskins.com, seem shocked and perhaps even a little embarrassed by the bargain-basement pricing of tickets for this weekend's Cardinals game at FedExField in the secondary market.

Tales of $10 purchases and premium tickets going for 33 percent of their face value or less abound, and posters point to the inventory on StubHub, the internet scalpers' clearinghouse, where tickets for Sunday's game are being offered for as little as $19. There's enough unsold seats floating around that if you've got blood to give, you can get tickets to the game for free from the Red Cross, also known as "The Official blood donation partner of the Washington Redskins!"

One concerned party asked Mark the Homer, a board moderator and Redskins Nation's longtime guru of all ticket-related matters, if in all his years of gurudom he'd ever seen a softer market for Skins tickets.

"I would have to say no," MTH posted.

Why aren't people going back to FedEx? Is it hi-def TVs in rec rooms?

Please Remain Terrified: Those warnings about an anniversary bombing yesterday, as the nation marked ten years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, turned out to be a false alarm, as no attack materialized. But that doesn't mean vigilance can come to an end; authorities say they'll keep on high alert, apparently just in case the terrorists had the wrong date circled in their calendars. The hyper-awareness of security that's brought on by seeing cops with automatic rifles patrolling public spaces may be a good deterrent, but it's also quite reminiscent of those sad, scary days of early fall a decade ago. We prefer being afraid of things like earthquakes and hurricanes, if we've got a choice. -2

A Dedication Deferred: Peak hurricane season ends in late October. Which means the new dedication date for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Oct. 16, isn't entirely out of danger—but it's not likely to be rained out again by tropical weather. The original ceremony, of course, was scheduled for the weekend when Hurricane Irene brought tropical storm-force winds and downpours to the District. President Barack Obama will still speak. No need to wait until then to go visit, though; the memorial is already open. +2

Marylandasaurus Rex: If the University of Maryland ever gets tired of being the Terrapins, they could always upgrade to an older type of reptile. A fossilized dinosaur hatchling discovered in College Park 14 years ago gets some press in the latest issue of Journal of Paleontology as the youngest fossilized dinosaur ever found. The hatchling is a nodosaur, a type of dinosaur rarely found in the United States. No word on what its parents did for dinosaur day care, the pressing concern for all new parents in the D.C. area. +1

Rexy Actually Is Kind Of Sexy: Like just about everyone in town whose last name isn't "Grossman," we were skeptical of the idea of sending the Washington Redskins into the NFL season with Rex Grossman as their quarterback. Evidently, we were wrong. Grossman and the Redskins beat the New York Giants 28-14 yesterday at FedEx Field, starting the season off 1-0. This means the team is now undefeated since owner Dan Snyder dropped his lawsuit against Washington City Paper and staff writer Dave McKenna over "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder." We'll see you all in Indianapolis in the official City Paper luxury box. +4

Friday's Needle rating: 55 Today's score: +5 Today's Needle rating: 60

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has just filed papers in D.C. Superior Court to dismiss his lawsuit against Washington City Paper and staff writer Dave McKenna over "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," which we published last November.

Since Snyder first sued over the story, City Paper and McKenna fought the case aggressively, eventually asking a D.C. Superior Court judge to dismiss it under the District's new law against "strategic lawsuits against public participation." And of course, we've also continued to write about the Redskins—which, of course, we'll keep doing.

Here's our statement on Saturday's news:

We are pleased that Dan Snyder has finally ended his gratuitous litigation against Washington City Paper and staff writer Dave McKenna.

From the beginning, we have believed that Snyder's lawsuit was a baseless one, designed to intimidate a journalist and a publication that have been among his most persistent critics. We've also argued—in our pages, and in court—that our article never said any of the allegedly libelous things Snyder claimed it did. As we defended ourselves, we got unprecedented support from loyal readers who donated thousands of dollars of their own money to help us protect our rights. And we were fortunate to have an ownership group who understood the stakes and stood by us. We're confident that the court would have seen things our way, too, thanks to the strong laws the District of Columbia has in place to protect free speech. But we're also glad that it won't have to go that far.

City Paper is a small news organization with limited resources, and defending ourselves against this lawsuit has cost massive amounts of time and money, well beyond the $34,308.91 that readers have contributed to our legal defense fund. Despite those costs, we are proud that we never wavered or allowed ourselves to be bullied, ultimately leading Snyder to dismiss his case. Though the District’s anti-SLAPP law says courts “may” have awarded us some of our litigation costs had we pursued them, we concluded that it wasn’t worth spending substantially more money, energy, and attention for what would have only been a chance of recovering a portion of what we've spent.

Today, we got what we wanted all along: dismissal of a case expressly designed to pressure us, and filed by a man who now apparently says he never even read the story in the first place. Now we're eager to get back to our business of covering the city's politics and culture—including its sports culture—without this distraction. And we hope the end of this case means Snyder can get back to focusing his energy on making our shared home team as good as it can be.

A judge in Los Angeles issued a ruling yesterday that the lawsuit filed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association against dick clark productions will go to trial later this month.

HFPA owns the Golden Globes; Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's Red Zone investment fund owns a majority share of the obnoxiously lower-cased entertainment firm.

dcp has produced broadcasts of the awards show since 1983. The suit arose out of dcp's deal with NBC last year to continue to air the show through 2018.

HFPA lawyers say dcp had no authorization to make that deal since the association, and not the production company, controlled the television rights. dcp, in turn, argues that its 1993 contract with HFPA gives it the right to negotiate with NBC for as long as that network airs the show.

Both sides had filed motions for summary judgment in their favor. But U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank rebuffed them yesterday and said she'll let a jury decide who wins.

Fairbank set a trial date of Aug. 30. Variety reported recently that dcp intends to call former longtime teenager Dick Clark to the witness stand.

Clark sold the company that bears his name in 2002. In 2007, Red Zone and the theme park chain Six Flags jointly purchased dcp for $175 million. Snyder controlled Red Zone, a private equity fund, and at that time he was chairman of the board of Six Flags, a publicly traded company. Snyder's Red Zone reportedly got 60 percent of dcp; Six Flags got a reported 40 percent.

Six Flags struggled throughout Snyder's reign atop the company, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in 2009. Snyder was out of Six Flags when it emerged from bankruptcy court.

He retained control of dcp, however, and has hired a lot of the management team he had with him at Six Flags, including former Six Flags CEO Mark Shapiro.

As a vestige of its time with Red Zone, Six Flags still owns a share of dcp.

Photo by Peter Dutton via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder says only Congress, not the D.C. Council, has the power to pass laws like the anti-SLAPP statute that Washington City Paper and staff writer Dave McKenna recently sought to use to have Snyder's lawsuit thrown out. Snyder also wants City Paper to pay for the cost of his response to our motion.

In a response to our motion, filed last night shortly before an 11:59 p.m. deadline, Snyder argues the anti-SLAPP law is unconstitutional, because the D.C. Council didn't have the authority to pass it; that even if it is constitutional, it doesn't apply in this case; that he's going to win the lawsuit; and that our special motion to dismiss was frivolous.

"This motion was brought solely to delay these proceedings and to put pressure on Mr. Snyder to settle his claims," the filing reads. "Defendants' 'Hail Mary' should not be rewarded."

City Paper and McKenna have asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman to throw out Snyder's lawsuit, which we've argued was filed as "a pretext for punishing and silencing his critics." A group of media and public interest organizations, as well as D.C. Councilmembers Mary Cheh (who wrote the anti-SLAPP law) and Phil Mendelson, have asked the judge to side with us.

The next hearing in the case hasn't been scheduled yet.

Read Snyder's filing here:

Snyder also filed a motion to strike some of the exhibits Washington City Paper and McKenna filed. Read that motion here:

Photo by Darrow Montgomery