Washington dc

Standing up to eat is the new line in dining in DC

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. Going into Spoken English, you feel a little like Henry Hill taking the back entrance to the Copa in Goodfellas. Wander into the Line Hotel, past the check-in, take a right past the elevators and enter the kitchen. It works best if you’re with someone you need to impress. Unfortunately, this time I’m with a Spectator editor. The Line is one of DC’s newest and hippest boutique hotels. That’s another way of saying it’s slightly less boring than the Hilton about five blocks away.

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Good riddance to the Newseum

The Newseum is officially closing its doors today after 11 years of operation in the nation’s capital and you won’t find me shedding a tear.Some journalists hailed the First Amendment-focused museum as a beacon of hope during a time when the media was facing dangerous attacks in America, like being called 'fake news' or only being allowed to ask one question during a press conference.But the Newseum was hardly the tribute to press freedom that it purported to be; rather, it was a money-hemorrhaging, unfocused building of stuff with a severe identity crisis.The most dynamic and engaging exhibit at the Newseum was arguably the lineup of front pages from the country’s most storied newspapers that sat just outside the front entrance.

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Transparent spirit: craft distilling has come to Washington DC big time

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. A white cross once rested over the door of the windowless warehouse at 1135 Okie St NE in Washington, DC. Residents seeking a reprieve from the street gangs and drugs that plagued the Ivy City neighborhood would huddle on the second floor and listen to the holy men of Old Ship of Zion Baptist Mission Church preach deliverance. Deliverance came. Crime plummeted. The violence and poverty along H Street gave way to Zagat-rated restaurants, organic markets and boutique bars. The closest thing you’ll see to weapons now in Ivy City is at Kick Axe, a new watering hole offering flannel-clad Capitol Hill staffers the opportunity to have a drink and, well, throw axes at wooden boards.

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E-scooters are a wretched species to be introduced into the urban ecosystem

Scattered along the streets of Washington DC are electric scooters. Most have four-letter names: Bird, Lime, Skip, Jump, Bolt. Using one for the first time, you may prefer to employ another four-letter word. I know I did. My first taste of the e-scooter phenomenon was on a visit to Los Angeles in February last year. The Santa Monica company Bird had been up and running for only five months, yet already its scooters were all over the city, like avian excrement. Students at UCLA embraced the Birds. Nobody seemed fazed by the undeniable fact that you cannot look cool on a battery-powered two-wheeler. The epidemic then spread to other American metropolises: Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami. New York has so far held out, but will likely soon fall.

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The media’s forgotten protest

As several hundred climate change activists shut down DC streets and held up morning commutes on Monday morning, a fellow progressive activist, Amy Siskind, was blasting the mainstream media to her 370,000+ Twitter followers: '50 neo-Nazis go to Portland to encourage violence and the media will cover them endlessly for days,' claimed the former Wall Street executive. 'Thousands peacefully protest and march to the Capitol, nothing from the media.'Siskind wasn’t referring to the climate protest taking place that morning. The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, ABC, and CBS all covered the activists linking arms and punishing Washington commuters for their climate sins. She was referring, instead, to her own protest that took place Saturday.

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The progressive crusade for DC statehood

Residents of Washington DC want the federal capital to become an independent state. In 2016, 86 percent of DC voters supported a petition to Congress to permit DC into the Union as its 51st state. The chief issue for Washington residents — ‘Taxation Without Representation’ — is displayed on all their license plates: the 700,000 city residents do not have a vote in either House of Congress. Unfortunately for Washington, though, the DC statehood movement is unpopular nationwide. According to a recent Gallup poll, 64 percent of respondents oppose the US capital becoming an independent state, while only 29 percent support the proposition.

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The new nationalism is here

Peter Thiel. Tucker Carlson. John Bolton. What’s most striking about the trio headlining the National Conservatism Conference is that none of the three has ever been elected to anything.Bolton may be national security adviser, but judging by his recent exile to Outer Mongolia and his stymied efforts to force regime change in Iran, his influence is ebbing. He may be rejoining the civilian corps soon enough.So why is a major new conference so honoring these folks? The question could be inverted. Why aren’t we hearing from over 200 Republican members of Congress? Sen. Josh Hawley, a freshman, will close Tuesday night at the NCC, but his address seems to have been a late addition.

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Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ is the perfect fusion of capitalism and patriotism

The Washington, DC city council is having none of it. 'Tanks, but no tanks', it tweeted at Donald Trump. Trump may shy from actual warfare but he has arranged a military extravaganza masquerading as a July 4 ceremony. While there may be no 'brand new Sherman tanks,' as Trump promised — they were retired after the Korean War — the Pentagon is furiously trying to figure out if it can safely transport the 60-ton M1 Abrams tank over Memorial Bridge without collapsing it. A thunderstorm might also cause any tanks to sink into the ground of the National Mall. It would be awkward symbolism for the man who promised to drain the swamp.

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Trump blames DC mayor for raining on his parade

If Donald Trump, as Susan Glasser shrewdly notes in her New Yorker column today, is running an ‘unreality show,’ then the latest installment arrived with his cancellation of a military parade in November on Pennsylvania Avenue. He blamed, as he always does, someone else. In this case it was Washington mayor Muriel E. Bowser who says that she ‘finally got thru’ to Trump about the exorbitant expense of his little parade. Trump stated on Twitter that the $21 million bill that the city wanted to submit for the cost of hosting the event would have amounted to a ‘windfall’ that he was unprepared to disburse.

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