‘Vintage Bank Money Bag’
courtesy of ‘las (used to be meeza 1)’

If you’ve paid any bills lately to the City of Annapolis, you might want to call them to make sure your check wasn’t one of the $149,000+ worth of checks that were in a bank bag that was stolen on Monday. The bag contained checks that were stamped “for deposit only” and those will likely have to be stopped and reissued, which can cost some change to the sender. No word yet who will pick up that tab. The thief also got away with around $4,000 in cash.

‘Downtown District of Columbia’
courtesy of ‘BAR Photography’

Via Nats News Network comes the news that DC’s ESPNZone is closing on June 16th, which will cancel all future Washington Nationals player Q&A sessions that had been scheduled there. It’s not just DC’s ESPNZone that’s closing, it’s the whole chain, except for two locations in Southern California. Disney cited poor performance of the chain as the reason for its demise.

It’s tough to see an anchor tenant like ESPN decide to take their business elsewhere, but it does open up some prime restaurant space in the middle of the downtown core. Don’t expect that space to be dark for long.

‘I Voted In Arlington’
courtesy of ‘christaki’

It’s primary day in Virginia for a number of local and statewide offices, which means it’s your chance to go vote the bums in or out, depending on your preference. Polls opened at 6am and won’t close until 7pm tonight, so go out and get your franchise on. Not sure where exactly you’re voting? Plug in your address and go find out. There are a number of primaries today for the various congressional seats, so go grab a ballot and make democracy happen. Democracy only works if you take part, and besides, you can’t bitch if you didn’t vote, and God knows how we love bitching about politics in this country. Do your duty.

‘Helen Thomas’
courtesy of ‘rachaelvoorhees’

With a career in the White House dating back to President Eisenhower Kennedy, Helen Thomas has been considered the grand old dame of the White House Press Corps for many years. After some remarks that came out Friday, though, she has announced her retirement this afternoon, effective immediately. While I’m not sure I can weigh in effectively on the content of her remarks, they have certainly generated a lot of left/right commentary in the last few days that made her in front of the story than behind the story.

Not ones to miss the opportunity for a good joke, the Washington DC JCC tweeted that Thomas was going on to serve as Mel Gibson’s publicist.

‘Walking’
courtesy of ‘brianmka’

The first Super Bowl to be played outdoors in a cold-weather city is slated for 2014 in East Rutherford, N.J., which is an exception to the usual preference of choosing a warmer climate to play the game.

Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder is pleased with this decision. In fact, he is so pleased with New York/New Jersey hosting the Super Bowl that he’s going to try and bring the NFL’s biggest game to DC.

The Washington Times reports that Snyder went on the record yesterday when he said he’s anticipating a “great experience” for the NFL at the Meadowlands in 2014. Why? He thinks it will generate positive feedback, providing more of a reason to host the big game in other cold winter temperature cities.

The Redskins tried to secure a spot to host the 2003 Super Bowl and were left with an unsuccessful bid.

“We’re ripe to get one,” Snyder told the Times. We’ll see.

‘Oaksterdam’
courtesy of ‘spotreporting’

MSNBC is running a story this afternoon citing numbers from the CFO’s office that DC could stand to make $400,000 in taxation revenue from medical marijuana. So little, I wondered what are the Pros And Cons Of Getting A Medical Marijuana Card? They provide some justification, including the number that blew my mind just a little bit: they’re saying that medicmainal weed will run $350/oz for those eligible to purchase it, and it will be subject to 6% sales tax. You can check out this site for the best scales for weed. According to VapeActive vaping is perhaps the fastest and easiest way to feel the potential benefits of CBD when experiencing chronic anxiety attacks, if you are asking which wax pen to buy then vapeactive.com will give you the answer.

So let’s see:

Tax on Cigarettes, $2/pack.

Tax on Liquor/Beer/Wine, 12%.

Tax on other tobacco products except cigarettes and cigars: 12%.

Tax on Weed: 6%.

Waaaaait a second…I guess it’s just subject to the same tax as other medications, but c’mon now. If you’re trying to grow marijuana legally in your own home, you can read here to know what legal steps to take.

I honestly just prefer to get the products online, if you didn’t know about this, you can get details at i49.net/how-much-marijuana-can-i-yield-per-plant. Buying quality medical marijuana and CBD products like cbd oil for anxiety is beneficial to those suffering from stress and certain kinds of diseases. You need to know that what you’re taking is safe and regulated. When it comes to buying CBD products online, we highly recommend  that you check out https://synchronicityhempoil.com/.

”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

It sounds like the start of a good comic book series, or maybe a Dashiell Hammett detective story. A criminal fakes his own death, with the help of his attorney, to face the consequences of his life of crime, only to be caught again in the act some time later. It could have soaring arcs covering the nature of human behavior, the strength of the police force in their investigations, the whole nine yards. It would be a best seller, I promise you, except for the fact that it actually happened in Manassas the other day.

The accused is Rodney T. Newsome, who is alleged to have committed a number of petty offenses in the last few months. He was caught by a court clerk who recognized his name from his earlier case. The Commonwealth’s Attorney has now asked for an investigation as to Mr. Newsome’s disposition. Read the whole thing, it’s worth a good laugh.

”A Dame’s School”
courtesy of ‘National Media Museum’

Today’s Lesson is: decision making.

It was quite a busy and buzz-worthy news day on this Wednesday in the District. First we lost the streetcars proposed for H Street, then we got them back. Oh … and then there was that time the Nationals sold tons of tickets for their June 4 contest vs the Cinncinatti Reds because everyone took it upon themselves to guess that the young phenom Stephen Strasburg would be making his Major League debut that day. This happened all while the Nationals organization never once announced anything on the subject.

Here’s the biggest difference in today’s decision making by the major players in Wednesday’s local daily news: Continue reading →

courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

The soda tax is back, though this time as a extension of the District’s sales tax. Tim Craig at DC Wire reports that Council Chair Vincent Gray (D) wants all “non-alcoholic beverages with natural or artificial sweeteners” to be taxed at 6%. This tax replaces the now-dead proposal by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) that would have added a 1-cent-per-ounce tax to sugar-based sodas. Presently all sodas are considered grocery items and are not subject to sales tax.

The new measure, which is a wider tax that would include diet sodas, is expected to bring in $8 million in revenue. $6.5 million of this would fund the Healthy Schools Initiative, with the leftovers going to the city’s general fund.

The new tax, while wider in scope, would raise the price of a $1.99 soda by around 12 cents. Cheh’s tax was based on the size of a beverage, resulting in nearly a 68 cent tax on a 2-liter beverage.

”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

There’s some confusion out there regarding purported commuter tax proposed by Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5).  Councilman Thomas is proposing an amendment to the budget this year that would tax non-resident employees and contractors who work for the District of Columbia, whose income is paid out of non-federal line items.

That would mean District employees whose living is made serving federally appropriated line items would not be subject to such a tax. It’s also not clear what the city would charge these individuals, but somehow they’ve come up with a total benefit to the city of $70M. They’ll do the taxation “at the source,” meaning that the city will keep a portion of the contractor/employee’s pay for themselves, as well as assessing the standard taxes for the employee/contractor’s given home state. Confused yet? Yeah, me too. All I know is that it sounds like an end-around the problems with previous commuter taxes.

Councilman Thomas can be reached via email or phone at 202.724.8028 if you’d like to give the Councilman your feedback.

When we asked one of our authors who lives outside the District, but works for the city, they said that the councilman’s plan was “some bullshitty bullshit,” and asked “Does he really want all of Arlington to move into DC? Where would we fit?”