Councilmember Jim Graham has generally kept quiet on the taxicab bribery case that has so far snared his right-hand-man Ted Loza. But at a recent Kalorama Citizens Association meeting, Graham apparently couldn't help himself. According to sources in attendance, he blasted federal law enforcement for busting Loza.

Recalls one source who was there: “[Graham] basically said Ted was entrapped by the FBI. The gentleman Kamus…He said he and Ted were very, very good friends. I thought it was a very bizarre thing to say."

Read More "Graham Slams Feds At Community Meeting; Claims His Remarks Were ‘Off The Record’" »

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Jack Evans Says He Still Supports Peter Nickles," "Councilmember Alexander Raises Concerns Over AG Nickles."

Morning all. Last night may have been National Night Out but for Mayor Fenty, it's Greek Week. WaPo breaks the stunning news that the District government actually paid the $37,000 tab for his Kappa Alpha Psi's welcoming party. The bash was held on Monday night and featured an open bar, crab cakes, red velvet cupcakes, and jazz bands tooting on two floors. The Post makes no mention of beer bongs and togas. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development had put out the dough via a grant. AG Peter Nickles apparently has forced Fenty and Co. to reimburse the city for the shindig. But Nickles swears Fenty knew nothing about the city's involvement. Key graphs:

"Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said he looked into the matter Tuesday morning at the request of the mayor. 'I concluded immediately that this was not proper,' said Nickles, who said the society reimbursed the money that morning.

Although the mayor attended the affair and was on stage as fraternity members thanked him for paying for the event, 'he didn't put two and two together that this was money that had come from the city,' Nickles said."

SEX ED NEWS: The District plans to expand its STD testing program into all public high schools. WaPo has the full story on this progressive move. There are plenty of reasons to do this. Key graphs: "The program conducted last year at eight high schools found that 13 percent of about 3,000 students tested positive for an STD, mostly gonorrhea or chlamydia, according to the D.C. Department of Health. The expansion places D.C. public schools in the vanguard of a growing number of urban school districts that test adolescents for STDs. About 12,000 students attend public high schools in the District." The news came within hours of DC Appleseed releasing its report card on how the District is dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis (for public education, the District received a C+). WaPo covers the DC Appleseed's findings noting the overall positive scores: "But the report took Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) to task for failing to give the disease more visibility. 'While Mayor Fenty and his administration deserve recognition for the continued support of . . . numerous HAA initiatives, his public appearances and statements about the epidemic have fallen short of his enthusiasm for action inside the government,' it said."

THE NEW YORK TIMES IS ON OUR SIDE: The paper's editorial board comes down hard against Congress and its attempts to meddle in our needle exchange program. The editorial dubbed the meddling an "outrage."

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT: As we mentioned above, National Night Out happened. This meant another All-Hands-On-Deck effort from the D.C. Police Department. Police visibility was high! But News Channel 8 reports that the District still endured at least one violent incident. Three people were injured during a shooting in Southeast shortly after 10 p.m. News Channel 8 reports: "Fire officials say two 38-year-old women and a 17-year-old boy have each been shot in the leg."

AFTER THE JUMP: A power outage, more Metro news, Harry Jaffe pens a quick profile of the judge in the Pershing Park case, and much, much more.

Read More "Paying For Fenty’s Frat Party: Loose Lips Daily" »

The economy might be in the dumps but it’s turning into a stellar year for consumer scams …  and government plans to combat them.

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.

Read More "Scam City! Grifters – and Consumer Protection – Are on the Rise, Officials Say" »

Racial profiling that became widespread during the Bush days is still with us, according a new report co-authored by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Despite U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s willingness to talk about race in America and his pledge to end racial profiling, his Department of Justice hasn’t done much to dismantle Bush-era guidelines on national security; Those guidelines not only promote racial profiling by the Federal Bureau of Investigation but create justification for state and local law enforcement agents to do it too, the ACLU charges.

"Racial profiling remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the U.S., impacting the lives of millions of people in the African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities," Chandra Bhatnagar, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program and the main author of the report said in a press release. "The U.S. government must take urgent, direct action to rid the nation of the scourge of racial and ethnic profiling and bring this country into conformity with both the Constitution and international human rights obligations."

The ACLU made the charges in a report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. To read the press release or the entire report, click here.

LL's spent the last couple of hours poring though the affidavit filed by federal authorities in support of the arrests made today in connection with OCTO corruption.

Here's the headlines:

• The whole scheme was laid bare thanks to the cooperation of an OCTO employee who was introduced into the scheme last March by Yusuf Acar. The employee went to the FBI in August.
• The dollar amount stolen is uncertain, but a company established to collect Acar's illicit earnings took in almost $300,000. The affidavit highlights suspicious transactions totaling over $600,000.
• Acar said in a taped phone call he was prepared to leave for Turkey and intimated he was stashing money for that possibility.
• Several other unnamed current or former OCTO employees are implicated in the scheme in various ways. Two of them have connections to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer---home of the $50M tax scandal uncovered in 2007.
• The scheme took two forms: ghost payrolling and inflated purchase orders.
• Acar had tapped into District e-mail systems and was intercepting e-mail traffic to and from the Office of the Inspector General in order to monitor whether they had gotten wind of his schemes.

Still want more? You could read the whole thing [PDF] or you could just read these highlights:

Read More "LL Breaks Down the OCTO Allegations" »

Wearing a fake beard while robbing a bank: inadvisable.

Wearing a fake beard while robbing the same bank twice: priceless.

Image courtesy of BuyCostumes.com