Trump threatens home rule if JLG wins

First Up

City Cast’s Yu Vongkiatkajorn was in a car crossing from Virginia into D.C. the other night when she snapped a picture of the Ultimate Fighting Championship setup on the White House lawn. Even from more than a mile away, it looked like a UFO had landed at 1600 Pennsylvania. Lights shot up through the night sky.

The bout, slated for Sunday night, is unprecedented in many ways. According to the good-government group that filed a suit to stop the fight, it’s an orgy of corruption, a case of turning over a public resource to a for-profit, invite-only event. According to commuters grumbling about the road closures that begin today, it’s an outrageous inconvenience in a city where actual public events screw up traffic often enough.

The long-shot lawsuit has at least achieved one result: In a court filing opposing the effort, the government laid out some of the costs and logistics involved. It said the event had thus far cost some $60 million and involved seven federal agencies. No wonder a new Reuters poll says only 16 percent of Americans approve of Donald Trump’s decision to stage the match at the White House.

For all we know, that number may sink lower over the weekend, as the country takes in the spectacle of a weigh-in at the Lincoln Memorial. And that’s before we even get to the fight itself, where crowds will whoop and cheer as people wail away at one another like circus freaks against the backdrop of our executive mansion.

I’m not ready to join that 16 percent, but maybe there’s at least something worth liking here. So much of the time Washington treats its public spaces like your grandmother’s sitting room, a place to always be proper. Concerts, fairs, and spectacles are fun — and should be part of what Washington’s all about. It’s just that they’d be even more fun without the allegations of corruption.

What D.C.'s Talking About

Trump Targets Home Rule. President Donald Trump appeared to threaten home rule in the event democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George becomes mayor: “I wouldn’t like it. Maybe we’ll take back Washington and run it on a federal basis,” he told reporters at an Oval Office event. “We won’t put up with it.” The comment enraged D.C. die-hards, but it probably caused some secret smiles at JLG headquarters: In District politics, a dis from Trump is likely to help a candidate.

Chipotle Suspects Nabbed. Police announced the arrest of three suspects in last month's melee at the Navy Yard Chipotle. Video of the brawl had gone viral just as the D.C. mayor's race — and Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — focused on the issue of curfews and out-of-control teens.

Old Post Office Sold. The Trump administration has sold the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Ave for $80 million, the Wall Street Journal reported — and the buyer is looking to re-sell for $400 million! It’s not, of course, just another government office building being unloaded. The historic landmark housed the Trump International Hotel, now the Waldorf Astoria. A flip for five times the sale price could become a big issue: Critics have warned that the government’s rapid real-estate sell-off will lead to sweetheart deals or instances of the government not getting full value for its property.

Down-Ballot Slugfest. WAMU’s Alex Koma helps make sense of one particularly obscure downballot race on your primary day ballot: The race for members of the Democratic State Committee. Under D.C. law, the committee will get to pick a D.C. Councilmember to temporarily replace Robert White in the (likely) event that White wins election to Congress. This year’s race involves two slates of candidates: “Free D.C.,” a left-wing grouping, and “Democrats United to Free D.C.,” more associated with the party establishment. As you might imagine, the two groups have nasty things to say about one another.

Kennedy Center Name Check. Today is the legal deadline for Trump’s name to come off the Kennedy Center. Late yesterday, the center's Trump-appointed board voted to seek a stay of a judge's ruling that gave them until June 12 to remove it. Conveniently, regular citizens can see the state of play for themselves by checking this live-stream from the group Hands Off the Arts, which mounted a camera in the Watergate building opposite the facade of the Center.

No Boats this July Fourth. For a subset of DMV locals, July 4 has always been about hitting the water: There are great fireworks views from kayaks in the Potomac. Not this year, Axios reports: The supersized show for America’s 250th means the waterway will close. There’s no map of the exclusion zone yet, but boaters are very unhappy. So might folks using a different type of conveyance: WUSA reports that Reagan National Airport’s airspace will also shut down. This year’s show, one of the biggest in history, starts later (9:40) and lasts longer (40 minutes) than usual.

Waymo Now! Three House Republicans are demanding that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser deliver an implementation plan for self-driving taxis in D.C. by July 5, according to Axios’ Cuneyt Dil. Problem: it’s not clear if she has the power to do so. There’s a bill in the D.C. Council to legalize the vehicles and set up a system for taxing and regulating them, with a hearing set for mid-July; a vote wouldn’t come until fall. One of the authors of the Congressional letter is Andy Biggs, a frequent D.C. critic who last year wrote a bill that would have allowed Trump to extend his D.C. police takeover.

Finally: Get Yer Pets Here! A second SPCA pet-adoption center in D.C. opens today in Ivy City. Officials are waving most adoption fees as adoptions have slowed markedly in recent months.

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Know Your Namesakes!

Welcome to Know Your Namesakes, City Cast’s occasional series helping readers make sense of the names behind all those alphabetized streets that crisscross the city. Today’s request comes from reader Teal B., of Taylor Street NW. Who’s it named for?

Unlike most of the District’s two- and three-syllable streets, Taylor Street isn’t actually named for someone lost to history: Its namesake is the 12th President of the United States, Zachary Taylor. But the story of how Taylor’s name came to adorn a relatively quiet street of D.C. rowhouses in Petworth and Columbia Heights is actually pretty interesting.

Taylor, a war hero who served from 1849 until his death in 1850, initially had his name on a street in Uniontown — now Anacostia — where an entire grid of streets was named after presidents. But when D.C. rationalized its street map at the turn of the 20th century, extending its system of numbers and letters throughout the entire District, Taylor and his colleagues lost their streets.

But not for long: Congress, which then ran the show in local Washington, simply redistributed the chief executives to their rightful places on the map. Right about that time, developers were clearing out new neighborhoods in the north of the city. They needed a two-syllable street beginning with “T.” And the legacy of one of America’s shortest-serving presidents lived on. A little.

And if you live on someone else’s street, and want to know who that someone was, drop us a line! We’ll find out for you.

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