Up until last year, the D.C. Council’s weekly breakfast meetings were closed to the press and the public. The meetings, which then council Chair Linda Cropp claimed were merely social in nature, were thought of by local reporters as the place where city politicos hammered out sensitive deals — and did so away from the prying eyes of the District’s residents. Even though that has now changed, we’ve never really gotten much of a sense…

Last week was a busy one when it comes to good comments, with thoughtful and funny ones about the Navy Yard Metro, Columbia Heights Day’s existence, avatars, and more. And speaking of avatars, why not set up your own? Maybe you can be like monkeyrotica, who was the talk of DCist’s commentariat — what’s his going to be? Something profane? Something phallic? Mr. Monkey’s response was this: For an avatar, I was about to go…

If there are two things most people know about WTOP Political Analyst Mark Plotkin, it’s that one, he’s not very tech-savvy, and two, he’s passionate aboout District voting rights. So passionate, it seems, that he even got himself kicked out of the White House yesterday. According to fellow WTOP reporter Mark Segraves’ account of the incident, Plotkin, along with the rest of the D.C. press corps and various local elected officials, attended an event at…

Just this week, GQ published their annual “50 Most Powerful People in D.C.” list. Populated by the likes of Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Karl Rove and Tim Russert, the list better describes the movers and shakers in “Washington”, but not the District. And since we’re snobs about local news and happenings, we threw together a little list of the people who really exercise influence in or over the lives of people who live and work…

Good Monday morning to you, Washington. We can officially declare that the dog days of August have arrived today, now that the House has finally, finally adjourned for their summer break. News junkies will want to note that before heading home they passed a modified version of the defense budget, which will increase spending for defense health care and military housing, among a list of other expenditures. Of course what Washingtonians really care about is…

Since 1983, Loose Lips, the City Paper’s weekly local politics column, has been the place to get quirky news and commentary on the District’s political figures. But today, James Jones, Loose Lips columnist for the last two years, bids farewell to the paper. Jones came to the City Paper after a stint at WAMU, and his first column was published on March 11, 2005. According to the folks at the City Paper, Jones has taken…

We’re but five days away from the March for Voting Rights, the biggest and best chance District residents and their supporters will have to demand that Congress finally do something about our longstanding disenfranchisement. As we noted yesterday, you only need to take an hour off of work to support a worthy and principled cause. But why should you? Well, on Friday we’ll be listing the reasons we’re heading out to march. But everyone is…

This might just be our opinion, but we always thought it was poor form to run your employment options by a guy hosting an online chat. Especially, it should be noted, if the potential employer might end up READING THE CHAT. From today’s session with Mark Plotkin over at the Post: Downtown: Howdy Mark. I got a career question for you: I’m a recent grad and have been offered a job working for a guy…

Via FreeRide, we read that WTOP’s Mark Plotkin spent part of his live chat with washingtonpost.com yesterday afternoon to call out Ward 3 residents for not caring enough, if at all, about the District’s lack of voting rights in Congress. Q: In your experience, do people from Ward 3 generally not support statehood/voting rights? I grew up in the ward – Forest Hills represent – and have found so many people on my parents block…

Speculation over how things may or may not change is an inevitable part of any election. There has been plenty of chatter about the impacts our city’s new leaders might have on the lives of District residents. However, we mustn’t forget that D.C. is America’s first and best official fiefdom, subject to the whims of what can only be called a highly creative bunch of representatives and senators. As a result, elections held hundreds of…