> It's a scam. There are different variations, but typically when you call they give you a line like "So glad you called! Almost nobody has registered yet, there will be amazing deals!" or similar pitches to make your fear of missing out override your critical thinking skills. Then they collect all your personal and bank information so they can pre-clear you to bid at the auction. Then there is no auction, the hotel's never heard of them, but on Monday your bank calls you about suspicious charges, account withdrawals, etc.

From another comment on the same thread:

> I know someone who went to one. Slightly different and less “criminal.” But they showed up and you had to pay like $50 to get inside. Once inside, it’s basically like a flea market. There are auctions for the good shit (cars, Rolex, etc.) but they’re all fake auctions and whoever wins these are people on the inside. So you basically pay $50 plus whatever you buy inside for some cheap shit

And another:

> Huge scam - I went to the auction 6 months ago after similar signs advertised an estate sale with Ferraris, Picasso, etc. it was held In a hotel ballroom which is already a huge red flag because you can’t verify where the stuff is coming from. The goods they had were mostly lithographs, not originals, from various famous artists which are normally worth somewhere between a few hundred or a couple thousand dollars for rare editions but these “auctioneers” would talk up the items as if they were originals worth hundreds of thousands or millions and really sucker people into bidding high numbers. Sometimes when a bit was low, the auctioneer a call at a higher number even though I didn’t see anyone raise their hand which is an illegal practice to artificially inflate the bid. I left soon there after. Avoid this like the plague.

> but IIRC he abstains from alcohol.

Just like everything else he says, that's a lie.

Trump:

> I'm not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life…. Whenever they are looking for something good, I say I never had a glass of alcohol.

Laraby, bartender at various 1990s clubs:

> I served him. And he drank at the bar. He'd come in with John Casablancas. He'd go to the side of the bar [at Spy] by the waitress station, because he liked the waitresses. He would order light beer.

Ault:

> We had champagne on the table, always, and we had vodka usually, some scotch. He was drinking champagne or vodka

Laraby:

> Trump was not a good tipper at all. He would stand at the bar, and if he was paying, which he sometimes did, John would have like three drinks, and he would have his beer and then they would get their bottle of wine, and the wine was expensive, and then he would leave me, like, two dollars.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmp7qe/does-donald-trump-drink-alcohol

Except the USAO is reviewing the cases, and they're determining that in 70% of cases they can't make a case. And in some nonzero number of cases the reason is precisely because of the shitty police work done by the arresting officers.

So in your analogy your boss is reading the proposals and rejecting 70% of them, some of which because they're illegible and nonsensical. And if someone called you out as being a shitty lazy policy proposal writer for not writing policy because of it they'd be entirely correct, just like people calling out lazy shitty cops not doing their jobs would be.

It's not the whole reason but one major aspect of it is that all throughout the 80s and 90s when crime was at its worst and there was very little development east of RCP, Asian people were the only ones willing to own and run businesses in many parts of the city.

These businesses were mostly corner stores and liquor stores, and had a reputation for charging high prices for low quality products. Even to this day if you go EOTR many if not most liquor stores, corner stores, and carryouts are owned and operated by Asian people. A significant amount of the anti-Asian sentiment is due to their reputation as profiteering off of the inability for poor black people to go to more competitive stores outside food deserts, and alleged racist treatment of their black customers.

Because arresting people is the police's job and prosecuting people is the USAO's job.

"Why should I review grants if the panel does not approve 70% of applicants?"

"Why should I conduct interviews if the hiring manager tells 70% of them they didn't get the job?"

"Why should I give college counseling if 70% of students don't get accepted to college?"

See how dumb that sounds in other jobs? Why should it be any different for police?

Rubba definitely deserves it.

I'm a serious meat eater and Oyster Oyster was still one of the best meals I had all year.

Nobody cares what you could or couldn't try.

Public transit is for the public, not you specifically.

> strange that these businesses would do this for a problem that some on here claim doesn't exist..

Literally nobody is saying that crime doesn't exist...

Interesting. Do you have any data that backs up your thought or are you just making stupid generalizations based off articles you only read the headlines of and random internet comments?

My ride went from 2 seats to 1, it's almost like everybody's personal situation is different...

Also, you've got to be kidding me with "you should try actually using the transit here." You know who is downvoting you? The people who don't have 4-seat rides to Dulles precisely because they chose to live near transit and use it frequently.

> It is ABSOLUTELY like telling my pal we're going to cross Hadrian's Wall and go to unconquered Caledonia when I invite him up to have a drink at my place

To be fair you're asking someone to drive 2+ hours round trip if they're coming from DC, and since they're driving they can't even fully participate in the activity you're inviting them to do.

I'll make that drive and stay sober no problem for a fun activity you can only do in the boonies - hiking, kayaking, biking, etc. But asking someone to drive an hour each way to nurse a couple beers on the couch while you never have to leave your house is definitely a lopsided ask. At least meet them at a bar in the middle somewhere.

RCN, Comcast, and Verizon all consider you a "new customer" after 2-3 years with no service.

Obviously it doesn't work for you since RCN is the only option in your building but for people with other options you can just cycle through each one every year or two to get the best deal.

It happened several times to me but I also used Uberpool a LOT back in the day.

Reminds me of back when Uberpool was a thing and entitled cheapskate assholes would request a pool then try to bully the driver into letting their 2 friends ride with them.

When I'm too lazy to make my own bagels Bullfrog is my go-to.

Everything bagel with egg, extra bacon, cheddar cheese and Sriracha mayo is one of if not the best bagel sandwich in DC.

I never understood the Tony's boner on this sub.

Yeah, it's cheap, but that's like all they have going for them. It's slow as hell and the food is ridiculously plain - a breakfast sandwich is just an egg and Sysco bacon on wonder bread. The pancakes are clearly Krusteaz food service mix and corn syrup "syrup."

If all you want is a cheap bland breakfast you could make the exact same thing cheaper and faster at home.

Is it an investment property? Houses getting the homestead deduction are capped at 10% a year for property tax increases.

More people hanging out outside. More people partying.

Someone drives by, sees someone they have a beef with. Someone gets "disrespected" at a party, goes to their car and gets their gun.

In the winter when people are hanging out inside, in smaller groups, there are far fewer opportunities for these things.

> a small portion of the city

The vast majority of 2/8 Wards, roughly 1/4 of the population and 1/4 the land area of the city is "a small portion of the city?"

...if you're at the kind of bar with sticky floors where everything is served in disposable cups.

NYC and Chicago have significantly higher population and density and NYCs MTA is drowning in debt, so much so that they're looking at having to shut down entire subway lines.

Probably not the model we want to follow.

There simply isn't a good reason to have 24 hour service on the metro.

Even when they had 3am service on weekends only about 1,500 people an hour used it after midnight. On weekdays that would probably be 500 or fewer.

Metro costs over $100,000 an hour to run, and much of that is fixed and doesn't go down running fewer trains - station manager salaries, electricity to the stations, Metro police, etc.

I'm the first person who will tell you that public transit shouldn't be expected to make money, but there's a common sense limit. Spending $200 per passenger to keep a subway running that nobody uses is well over that limit.

>987K apartment on Capitol Hill: $5.6K property tax
> > 1025K home in Dallas: $13k property tax

You would need around a $300k income to afford a million dollar property. That's about $22k in DC income tax on top of the property tax.

DC is about $14k ahead in taxes in this scenario.

I live all the way across town but I do a once monthly trip to Rodman's for all the tea, chocolate, international snacks, and wine I can't get over in NE.

Also, they sell the fancy wooden cases their wine comes in for like $2 each. One of those cases stuffed with wine, Ritter Sport, Walker's shortbread, Williamsburg peanuts, stroopwafels, etc. is my go-to christmas gift for pretty much anyone.

On one hand, she's nowhere near fun enough to enjoy a place like Dan's Cafe.

On the other hand, Dan's bathroom might make it the only place in the city she can stay for any period of time without people around her constantly asking what the foul stench in the air is.