Heller Denied D.C. Gun Permit

Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Washington, D.C.'s 32-year-old ban on handguns and established that the 2nd Amendment provided an individual right to own guns, was denied a handgun permit by the District yesterday. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit. But when he tried to ...

Obama Not Recognized at DC Gym

Barack Obama has apparently been on the campaign trail so long that they don't recognize him in Washington anymore. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have one of the best-known faces in the world, but that doesn’t mean he is recognized everywhere, even in Washington. Washington Sports Club employee Takehia Wheeler was manning the front desk to scan members’ identification cards Friday morning ...

Breaking News: Fire at Eisenhower Executive Office Building (Updated)

There is a large fire at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. This building houses the (ceremonial) Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, and the National Security Council. According to ABC News everyone has been evacuated from the building. No word on the cause or extent of the fire. More from CNN: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- ...

Supreme Court Punts on D.C. Gun Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning declined to take action on D.C.'s appeal of an appellate court decision last March striking down its ban on handguns. Linda Greenhouse provides background: Both sides in a closely watched legal battle over the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law are urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. If the justices agree — a ...

D.C. Convention Center Renamed After Former Mayor

No, thankfully, they didn't name it after Marion Barry.

DC Taxi Meter Politics is Local

Reacting to news that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty has ordered taxis to install meters, thus overturning the bizarre "zone" system unique to the District, Ezra Klein observes that this will have a profound effect in his daily life second only to the recent smoking ban for DC bars. Local politics matters! And yet I spend all my time arguing for ...

What’s Wrong with DC?

Ezra Klein ignited a big inside the Beltway cross-blog discussion by positing that Washington, D.C. is much less yuppie friendly than other major cities, notably Seattle and Portland. What makes DC awesome is the collection of people pulled their for work (and no, the existence of the suburbs doesn't change the fact that most of us, Matt [Yglesias] and myself ...

Gay Debate Really Gay

The top candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination appeared last night at a gay rights forum sponsored by LOGO, a "lifestyle cable channel aimed at gay and lesbian viewers." CQ's Sara Lubbes, Josh Stager and Jesse Stanchak describe the setup: Unlike several candidate debates held earlier this year, the Democrats never appeared on stage together, but took questions at 15-minute ...

D.C. Retrocession Redux

Cato's William Niskanen argues in today's Washington Examiner, as I have numerous times in this space, that the solution to the lack of congressional representation for D.C. residents is not an unconstitutional single vote in the House but rather retrocession to Maryland. Mayor Adrian Fenty might not like it, but retrocession would be superior for most District residents on political, fiscal ...

U.S. States Compared to Country GDPs

The Strange Maps blog has an interesting map which has the 50 United States plus DC renamed for countries with the closest GDP. It's interesting and puts into perspective our enormous wealth. Andrew Sullivan, whose post drew my attention to the map, sees something else: "The District of Columbia has the same GDP as New Zealand. Now imagine if no one in ...

D.C. Commuter Tolls

After years of having Congress knock down attempts at imposing a commuter tax, three D.C. Council members have proposed a workaround, Harry Jaffee reports. Three council members — Kwame Brown, Harry Thomas Jr. and Marion Barry — have introduced legislation to study the idea of creating a toll system to charge commuters who want to cross the D.C. line. [...] Says Ward 2 ...

President Threatens Veto for D.C. Vote Bill

The White House yesterday issued a press release threatening to veto the blatantly unconstitutional bill creating a House seat for the District of Columbia. There's a reason it took a Constitutional Amendment to give D.C. three Electoral College votes. Indeed, the Supreme Court had rejected attempts to accomplish that through simple legislation. Congress passed an Amendment in 1978 to ...

D.C. One-Third Illiterate

When I saw the YahooNews headline "Study finds one-third in D.C. illiterate," I presumed it was some sort of play on Mark Twain's line that, "Those who can read and don't are no better off than those who can't." Apparently, they're serious. About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to ...

Giving D.C. a House Vote Redux

My Congressman and D.C.'s pretend Congresswoman are teaming up in a dubious and unconstitutional effort to give D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is teaming up with U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) to introduce a bill that would for the first time give the District a full vote in Congress, a sign ...

Marion Barry Tests Positive for Cocaine Use

Barry Tested Positive for Cocaine Use In the Fall D.C. Council member Marion Barry tested positive for cocaine use in the fall in a drug test ordered by a court after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, according to two sources familiar with Barry's case. Barry, who served four terms as mayor and was elected to the Ward 8 ...