Will Rast of Funk Art
@ Fort Reno
Q:What's your song for summer?
A:"'I Ain't Nobody's Baby' by Sharon Jones."
Photo of the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE, where a police checkpoint will be set up this weekend, by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post
IT'S AN AGGRESSIVE INITIATIVE that has its share of proponents and detractors, but reaction to the plan by D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier to set up a military-style checkpoint in the crime-plagued Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast is strong in many quarters.
Police officers will begin stopping cars this weekend in the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE. The Post's Allison Klein and Nikita Stewart report that police will "record all license plate numbers, verify residents' addresses and ask others for phone numbers of those they are visiting, according to a directive issued by Chief Cathy L. Lanier."
Those who don't provide a reason for entering the neighborhood could be turned away, Klein and Stewart report:
"Legitimate" purposes to be in the area include going to a doctor, church or community event or visiting friends or relatives, officials said. Individuals can show a flier for an event to gain entrance, for example.The topic is Express's poll question of the day: "Is D.C. going too far by using checkpoints to prevent violence in Northeast?"
Continue Reading "Poll Center: Police Checkpoint in Trinidad" »
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT is set to hear oral arguments Tuesday on the future of the District's ban on handguns — a case that could alter the way the government interprets the Second Amendment.
"This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to be interpreting the meaning of an important provision of the Constitution unencumbered by precedent,'' Randy E. Barnett, a constitutional scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, told The Post's Robert Barnes. "And that's why there's so much discussion on the original meaning of the Second Amendment.''
In an editorial today, The Post said that even if the justices interpret the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right to gun ownership, "they can and should allow lawmakers maximum flexibility to enact reasonable regulation. In our view, that flexibility should include the District's law, which is aimed at taking the most dangerous guns off the streets of what was once one of the nation's most dangerous cities."
How the justices will come down on the District's gun law is the subject of today's Poll Center question: "Do you think the Supreme Court will uphold the District's ban on handguns?" Click on this link to vote and join an already growing conversation on the topic.
— GB
» "D.C.'s Gun Ban Gets Day in Court" [WaPo]
» "Editorial: The D.C. Gun Case" [WaPo]
ON WEDNESDAY, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced the firing of nine D.C. government employees for looking at pornography on their office computers. The dismissals came after an internal investigation of computer use across various agencies of the D.C. government.
Let's take a look at the porn problem by the numbers ...
» 200: The average number of times per workday in 2007 that three of the nine fired workers looked at inappropriate images.
» 39,000: The number of times in 2007 that three of the nine fired workers looked at inappropriate images.
» 32: The number of employees found to have looked at pornography at the office at least 2,000 times during 2007. Those employees will be reprimanded or suspended.
» 10,000: The number of city computers that were reviewed in the porn probe.
» $142,000: The amount of money spent to upgrade anti-porn software on 30,000 city computers.
For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Have you ever used a computer at work to surf the Web for pornography? Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "9 D.C. Workers Fired For Looking at Porn" [WaPo]
SO WILL THERE BE A D.C. TAXI STRIKE? Maybe.
On Wednesday, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty decided to scrap the District's decades-old zone-based taxicab fare calculating system in favor of time-and-distance meters, which are common in most large cities.
Some D.C. cab drivers say their livelihood is threatened and vow to strike in two weeks in an attempt to push for Fenty's decision to be reversed, as The Post's Sue Anne Pressley Montes and Yolanda Woodlee report.
William Wright of the Taxicab Industry Group tells The Post that the drivers' fight is not over: "We're going to find a way to get this overturned. If we have to go to every single member of the Senate and the House, we're going to do that."
But as this writer reported on Wednesday, some cabbies want meters, saying that the zone system is prone to corruption at the hands of deceitful drivers who can dictate fares and squeeze a couple extra bucks out of passengers unfamiliar with zone quirks. Although a recent Zogby survey showed that the vast majority of D.C. cab riders want reform, there is some unease with time-and-distance meters, which drivers can manipulate by taking roundabout or particularly traffic-laden routes to increase fares.
What do you think? For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Will you be more likely to take a cab in D.C. once the zone system is phased out? Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "D.C. Cabs Told to Switch From Zone Fares to Meters" [WaPo]
» "Around D.C., Mixed Reactions to Meter Decision" [Free Ride/Express]
Photo of the Union Station taxi queue by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
AT TODAY'S MEETING of Metro's board of directors, Jim Graham, who represents the District on the board, is scheduled to introduce his plan on how to restructure transit fares to close a looming budget gap — a counterproposal to a plan previously introduced by General Manager John Catoe. While Catoe wants to increase rail, bus and parking fees to close to gap, Graham says low-income riders who depend on Metrobus would take a big hit and is arguing that bus fares should remain the same at $1.25. Instead, Graham thinks that parking rates should be subject to a higher increase.
Most of Metro's parking facilities are in suburban Maryland and Virginia, whose representatives on the Metro board say that long-distance rail commuters already pay their fair share. The Post's Lena H. Sun reported on Wednesday:
At $1.25, bus fares are already among the lowest for major U.S. cities. Suburban board members argue that rail users, who pay close to 80 percent of the cost of their trips, already heavily subsidize bus riders, whose fares cover only about 35 percent of the trip.But Graham cites statistics that indicate that only one-third of suburban Metrorail riders who live inside Metro's jurisdiction actually use Metro parking facilities; the other two-thirds come from outlying jurisdictions such as Prince William County that don't contribute a cent to Metro's operating budget.
So a city vs. suburban battle is a brewin', which isn't new to Metro, but when there's ever talk of a fare increase, every jurisdiction fights for its own interests. What do you think?
For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Is it fair for Metro to shift a greater share of rate hikes to suburban riders?
Go vote (and comment) here, and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "No Metrobus Fare Hike Under Graham Plan" [Free Ride/Express]
» "D.C. Counters Catoe's Fare Plan" [WaPo]
Photo by Larry Morris/The Washington Post
MARYLAND HAS PLENTY of wealthy people. In fact, in U.S. Census Bureau statistics released last month, the Old Line State was shown to have the highest median household income among U.S. states: $65,144. (New Jersey is a close second with $64,470.) So with a pool of well-off people to draw from, should Annapolis look to the rich to close the state's current projected $1.7 billion budget gap?
As The Post's John Wagner reports, Gov. Martin O'Malley, pictured above, is gearing up to present his plans to overhaul Maryland's income tax structure, calling for a "more progressive" system that he says would reduce the tax burden on 95 percent of state residents and rely on higher-income earners to pay more.
Republicans are, naturally, opposed to the plan, but initial reaction to the governor's proposal is exposing some geographic divisions: Some Montgomery County Democratic leaders, who represent wealthy constituencies, are opposed, too. Under the plan, as Wagner reports, Montgomery's combined state-county tax burden would be 9.7 percent.
Continue Reading "Poll Center: Tap Md.'s Rich to Ease Budget Woes?" »
THE DISTRICT GOVERNMENT put up a united front on Tuesday, the day it officially asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold D.C.'s stringent ban on private ownership of handguns. Standing in front of Metropolitan Police Department headquarters with D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer and a crew of police officers, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said, according to The Post's Robert Barnes and David Nakamura, that "[t]he only possible outcome of more handguns in the home is more violence. Our appeal will help the District of Columbia be able to continue to reduce gun violence."
A federal appeals court ruled in March that D.C.'s gun ban violates Second Amendment protections and if the Supreme Court chooses to take the case — as many legal observers think is likely — the future of D.C.'s gun restrictions could set a new precedent. Write Barnes and Nakamura:
Most legal experts believe the court will accept the case, which could lead to a historic decision next year on whether the ambiguously worded Second Amendment to the Constitution protects private gun ownership or only imparts a civic right related to maintaining state militias.Fenty and Singer think the Constitution is on their side and they wrote in a joint op/ed in The Post published Tuesday:
The handgun ban has saved countless lives, but this fundamental part of the District's public safety laws will be no more if the Supreme Court does not review and overturn this year's decision by the D.C. Circuit. Departing from the consensus of the courts, the court (in a 2 to 1 vote) decided that the Second Amendment is not about state militias after all but about personal gun rights. We think that ruling is extraordinary and wrong. Indeed, it is the first time a federal appellate court has used such a view of the Second Amendment to strike down any gun-control law.Of course, not everyone agrees. Gun rights adovocates point to the the District's high crime rate as evidence that the ban does not work in a city with open borders and easy access to weapons in Maryland and Virginia.
If the high court takes the case, the future of the gun control debate in the United States could rest on the strengths, or weaknesses, of the District's case.
For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Do you think D.C.'s tough ban on handgun ownership is unconstitutional? Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "D.C. Asks Supreme Court to Back Gun Ban" [WaPo]
» "Fighting for Our Handgun Ban" [WaPo]
» EARLIER: "Fenty's Gun Ban Push Keeps D.C. on Legal Edge" [Free Ride/Express]
Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post
IDAHO SEN. LARRY CRAIG'S FUTURE on Capitol Hill doesn't look so bright. After Roll Call earlier this week delivered news of Craig's previously unknown June arrest in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, the conservative Republican has been under fire for not disclosing the incident and his subsequent guilty plea for disorderly conduct.
Craig has also been fighting off accusations he is secretly gay. Those rumors led to an investigation by the Idaho Statesman into the senator's personal past, which dredged up an accusation that he once solicited sex in a Union Station men's room. (Sidenote: If true, that's nasty because Union Station's bathroom facilities are pretty dirty.)
Now, as an ethics probe into Craig's arrest begins, a number of his GOP colleagues on the Hill, including Sens. John McCain and Norm Coleman want him to resign, and the Senate GOP leadership has removed him from committee assignments.
For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Should Sen. Larry Craig resign in the wake of his arrest in an airport bathroom? Go vote and comment here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "GOP Leaders Strip Craig Of Committee Assignments" [WaPo]
EARLIER:
» "Craig Arrested, Pleads Guilty Following Incident in Airport Restroom but Says He Did Nothing Wrong" [Roll Call, subscription req'd]
» "Larry Craig Investigation" [Idaho Statesman]
» "Sen. Craig: The Re-Enactment" [SlateV via Free Ride/Express]
Photo by Mannie Garcia/AFP/Getty Images
BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION of SmarTrip on Metrobus, commuters in the D.C. area could use pennies for their fare and when it was just $1.10 per ride (most buses today are $1.25 per ride). But penny-dumping bus passengers would often clog fare machines. And the newer SmarTrip-enabled fare machines don't allow pennies.
At this writer's apartment, the coins have piled up in jars, destined someday for a CoinStar machine. But perhaps all those pennies should be cashed in quickly. There are proposals floating to get rid of the penny because the price of zinc is rising — pennies are now mostly made of zinc, with a copper coating — and it now costs almost two cents to produce each one-cent coin.
For today's Poll Center question, we ask: "With the cost of materials rising, should the U.S. mint stop producing pennies?" Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters voted, station by station, line by line.
» "Jarden Lobbies to Protect the Penny" [AP via Forbes]
» "Poll Center: August 16, 2007" [Poll Center/Express]
Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images
WHENEVER WE POSE a Poll Center question about gun rights, the comments pour in. Today's question — "Should college students who have permits be allowed to carry guns on campus?" — is no different.
In the wake of this year's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, some are asking whether having expanded rights to carry weapons would have prevented the tragedy. Virginia law currently dictates that individual colleges and universities are the ones that decide whether students can carry concealed weapons on campus. As the Associated Press recently reported, there's a new push to prevent colleges and universities from prohibiting students from arming themselves.
Others say such a plan is foolish. Chimes in Poll Center commenter Red Dog:
Oh sure, let hormonal and drunk college kids walk around packing heat. Great plan. That will certainly solve the problem of violence on campus.What do you think? Vote on today's question (and leave your comments) here and see how your fellow commuters weighed in, station by station, line by line.
» "Poll Center: Aug. 13" [Poll Center/Express]
» "Students Push for Guns on Campus" [AP via WT]
Addison Road