The Daily Feed

Some tweets just need no explanation – results from the 2012 DC Primary

Marion Barry is Twaggin

I’m just going to leave this here.

The Councilman for life won his primary challenge yesterday, joining Muriel Bowser, Yvette Alexander and Jack Evans as incumbents that have locked up their party’s slot on the November ballot, and in DC, the de facto general election.

In the race for At-Large, Vincent Orange has a 500 vote lead over Sekou Biddle for the party’s nomination, with former PG County council chair Peter Shapiro splitting the vote just enough to put Orange in the driver’s seat for the fall election. Due to the unique requirements of the District’s charter, there will be one seat guaranteed to an independent or non-majority party, though both could go that direction under law.

So, who’s out there twaggin’ on behalf of DC today?

Justin Karp from WJLA has rounded up some of the best Barry-related tweets today.

The Daily Feed

It’s Ballot Petition time again!

Photo courtesy of
‘Petition for Council–signatures’
courtesy of ‘Rochelle, just rochelle’

That’s right, it’s election season again. The April 3rd, 2012 primary is now officially underway (though we’ve had candidates in and out of the race already) with ballot petitions being available to suitors this morning down at the DC Board of Elections and Ethics at Judiciary Square.  Ballot petitions are required by all three (yes, three) parties in the District to be part of the primary ballot, though signature requirements are vastly different between the organizations.

The Democratic Party requires 2,000 party member signatures for the At-Large race, and 250 party member signatures for the Ward seats.  Ron Moten may be crazy like a fox, though, for jumping ship to be a “Civil Rights” Republican, as he’ll  likely be the only candidate in the Ward 7 race to do so, and he needs just 14 signatures of Republicans in Ward 7 to get on the ballot. DCist’s Martin Austermuhle is camping out at DCBOEE this morning for the pickup process, so follow his twitter for a blow-by-blow.

As of 9:15 this morning, Jacque Patterson has picked up petitions to run against Marion Barry in Ward 8, and Councilmember Muriel Bowser has picked up petitions to run for re-election in Ward 4. It’s expected that three of the four ward council members will be facing serious challenges, with Muriel Bowser facing 7 opponents, Yvette Alexander facing at least three party challengers plus Ron Moten, and Marion Barry will have at least two.  Jack Evans is so far unopposed, with his only challenger bowing out ahead of the petition deadline, suggesting harassment from the Evans camp.

All Politics is Local, Business and Money, The Daily Feed, WTF?!

Turkeys Missing at Barry’s Giveaway

Photo courtesy of
‘Jive Turkeys’
courtesy of ‘F1RSTBORN’

Early this morning, a throng of people showed up at Union Temple Baptist Church in Ward 8 to collect on their Marion Barry-sponsored turkey. And walked away empty-handed.

According to a press release from Barry’s office, the 2,000 promised turkeys were delayed in arriving this morning due to “Giant Grocery Store’s corporate inflexibility.” It seems that the corporate execs at Giant were not amiable to the idea of sending such a large amount of food without full payment from Barry’s office. The $26,000 was required in full by the grocery store chain before they would deliver the turkeys; Hizzoner’s office had only raised $17,000 of the required amount.

“First of all, I must apologize to the Ward 8 community for Giant’s failure to provide timely support to the Community. It’s simply pathetic and incomprehensible to me that a multi-billion dollar corporation, like Giant, would take a position that would deprive children, seniors and other adults of food for the Thanksgiving holiday”, Barry said in the press release. Continue reading

Crime & Punishment, People, The Daily Feed, The District, WTF?!

Hizzoner Once Again in Trouble

Photo courtesy of
‘Marion Barry and Mr. Grumpy Pants’
courtesy of ‘ricepeter’

So now the IRS is jumping back into the Marion Barry pool. (And a dirty one that is, too…) The IRS filed a lien against Hizzoner in an attempt to reclaim some of the $15,000 in unpaid taxes that Barry owes. “There is a lien in favor of the United States on all property and rights to property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes,” states the lien.

This lien appears to be unrelated with Barry’s earlier IRS troubles, where he admitted he hadn’t paid the bulk of taxes on the $500,000 he earned between 1999 and 2004. The IRS has been taking $1,350 from Barry’s salary since late 2006 to repay that debt.

According to the lien, Barry also owes $649 for 2005; $4,907 for 2006; $8,679 for 2007; and $1,022 for 2008. Fred Cooke, Barry’s attorney, believes Hizzoner paid his 2008 taxes in full.

Anatomy of a Scandal

Anatomy of a Scandal: Parks Department

Photo courtesy of
‘Green. Very Green.’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

Hi there, and welcome to the first of an occasional series called Anatomy of a Scandal. There’s always something to fight about when it comes to DC politics, and that’s just the local stuff, not what happens over at the Capitol. Unlike national politics, though, not every local political adventure has a clear set of sides and players. We’re here to help figure some of this stuff out. First up? Department of Parks and Recreation. It’s been sort of a long drawn out cluster of scandals, and you should probably know some of the people involved.

Dramatis Personae
Adrian Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia
Peter Nickles, His Attorney General
Vincent Gray, Chairman of the City Council, rival to Fenty
Kwame Brown, At-Large Councilman
Marion Barry, Hizzoner Emeritus
Ximena Hartsock, Interim/Acting Director of the Department of Parks & Recreation, appointed by Mayor Fenty (twice…)
DC Housing Authority, a quasi-governmental entity
Omar Karim, friend of the Mayor, fraternity brother to Adrian Fenty.

Continue reading

All Politics is Local, The Daily Feed

Barry Stops Short of Screaming “You lie!”

Photo courtesy of
‘Marion Barry’
courtesy of ‘cliff1066â�¢’

Everyone is rightfully outraged over the recent mass firings of DCPS teachers due to a $44m budget shortfall; over 200 were let go on Friday. Students, teachers and their allies came together yesterday to protest the cuts and a lot of their attention focused on the Chancellor of DCPS, Michelle Rhee. They even received a few not-so-calming words from every body’s “favorite” Councilman Marion Barry, according to NBC Washington.

“Chancellor Rhee has lied to you. Lied to you,” Barry said. “And I don’t like liars.”

Continue reading