A deliberative roundup of one city’s local politics. 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:
Power Pavers Sulaimon The Silly Fact Check: How Cooperative is Kwame Brown?
Good afternoon sweet readers! It’s Thursday, and you all know what that means: Washington City Paper staffers are in hiding after another successful toilet papering of a certain football team owner’s house. Also, the paper’s dead tree edition is out on the streets. This week’s cover is our Fall Arts Guide, if you’re into that sort of thing. Benjamin Freed looks at where a movie theater ought to go east of the river. LDP looks at how there’s no telling how long it’ll be before the mayor’s Skyland dreams become reality. And LL profiles the political pull of road building behemoth Fort Myer Construction (and manages to get a cuss word into the first quote!). News time:
Double Standard: Former Councilmember Bill Lightfoot lights up the Georgetown Dish with an interview on the current state of ethical affairs on the council, and in the media. Lightfoot chows down on the meaty issue of a (real or perceived) racial double standard when it comes to investigating and reporting councilmember misconduct. “There is a concern in some segments of the Black community in this town to call for the removal of Black politicians will further the gentrification of the city. … Furthermore, there is a view among a segment of the Black population in the city that a double standard is applied to the alleged unethical conduct of Black politicians versus white politicians. The [louder] outcry over the conduct of Harry Thomas does not seem to be [equal] to the outcry over Jim Graham’s conduct of not reporting a known bribe. Some people view that as a double standard.” LL always finds it a bit odd when people suggest Graham’s alleged misdeeds have not gotten plenty of attention in this newspaper.
AFTER THE JUMP: HuffPo Goes Lives; Dirty Test; More Taxes!…
Name Your Top Three Game Changers, Darling: After the rousing success of TBD in covering local news, Arianna Huffington has decided she wants in on the action. She poached @WCP’s editor Michael Grass to head Huffington Post D.C., which went live today. LL could do without the slideshow of councilmembers in their swimsuits, but if that’s what it takes to bring in the clicks, so be it. Councilmember David Catania, former wannabe councilmember Adam Clampitt, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham’s polticial consultant Chuck Thies have columns up on the need to protect youth from violence, the need to take care of veterans and the need to protect cars.
Dirty Test!: “D.C. public and public charter schools, which annually test student progress in reading and math, will also measure what they know about human sexuality, contraception and drug use starting this spring,” the Post reports. Commence uproar!
In Other News: Sorry multi-state corporations, you’ll have to pay more taxes now. Gray won’t testify on statehood arrests. Would you pay $150,000 to cut down a tree? Senate keeping its hands off D.C. budget for now.
Gray sked: 2:30 p.m. taping “One City, One Movement to Stop Domestic Violence” PSA.