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:

Jim Graham Questions MPD’s “Diligence”

Good morning sweet readers! Dear Malaysia Airlines, I’ll never fly with you again, signed, LL’s bean. News time:

It’s Gamblin’ Time: The Post editorial page, its teeth still dripping with the blood of Team Thomas, has found a new target: Councilmember Michael Brown and his online gambling law. The Post published emails today from the dearly departed council staffer Jeff Coudriet that strongly suggest it was Brown’s plan all along to push through the online gambling legislation last December when no one was looking. “Legalizing online gambling on the fly with no public input is probably a real bad idea,” Coudriet wrote, in May 2010!  “There are people who would go bat [expletive] about this.”  Bat crap? Bat damn? Bat hell? What did Coudriet mean!? Anyway, Coudriet was of course right, and now Brown is left to explain why he initially said he pushed through the legislation so quickly because of the District’s dire financial situation, when he had at least six months to pursue the legislation through normal means. The Post news section has a curtain raiser to today’s D.C. Council hearing on the law, which promises to probably be very dull and possibly informative.

AFTER THE JUMP: Loza to Prison; What Use, DCTC?; Breatfeeding Cop on Leave Without Pay…

Gift-Taker To Prison: Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham’s former chief of staff, Ted Loza, was sentenced to eight months in prison yesterday for taking gifts and not reporting them. The sentence was on the low end of federal guidelines and is under the one-year threshold that typically leads to deportation (Loza is not a U.S. citizen). Loza’s defense attorney read a poem at the the sentencing, and Graham called the punishment “fair.” The FBI, which spent gobs of time and energy  trying to nab Loza and Graham (who has never been charged with any wrongdoing related to the case) issued a statement that has U.S. Attorney Ron Machen saying, “Today’s sentence demonstrates our steadfast commitment to aggressively investigating and prosecuting cases of public corruption in the District of Columbia.” We’ll see about that, won’t we?

Get Rid of DCTC: Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert chronicles the problems with the D.C. Taxicab Commission and wonders if the District would be better off without it. “The more I watch DC government, the more I feel that these boards and commissions don’t work. They have a significant role in setting policy, but the last two mayors, at least, haven’t appointed people with an eye toward specific policy directions. Instead, they appoint people they know personally or big campaign donors.

In Other News:

• Some members of the fightin’ 41 get September court date.
• Attorney General Irv Nathan: Prohibiting taping of public meetings, a la D.C. Taxicab Commission, is dumb.
• Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry is happy with Mayor Vince Gray‘s focus on development in Ward 8.
• Cops being investigated for alleged brutality.
• The  MPD-doesn’t-like-breastfeeding-cops story now has a face.
• District still waiving costs for parades and festivals.

Gray sked: Weekly presser at 10 a.m.; Meeting the council at 2:30 p.m.

Council sked: 10 a.m. hearings on overtime problems in the fire department, online gambling; 11 a.m. hearing on prisons.