It’s the afternoon before Christmas Eve and all throughout Arlington, things are getting quieter.
Whether you’re celebrating the holiday here, out of town or not at all (except perhaps the traditional Chinese takeout and movie evening), we hope you have a great holiday weekend. Also, we hope you booked your pie reservation early.
Well, it’s no Civil War gold, but there are buried artifacts in a Ballston office building just waiting to be uncovered.
A time capsule in Ballston’s Fairgate office building (1005 N. Glebe Road) was originally scheduled to be opened last year, but those plans got lost in the mix and now it’s unclear when or if the time capsule will be opened.
This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Victoria Khaydar, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Falls Church, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.
“Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.” – Winston Churchill.
The Trump Administration, in both its first and second iterations, has not lived up to that Churchill quotation, not least because its principals are so paranoid and unprofessional that they usually air their grievances in public. Sometimes, when facing unfriendly questioning before Congress, a leading Administration official bangs the table about how the Dow Jones Industrial Average has broken 50,000; sometimes, when a bottle of bourbon goes missing, a leading Administration official threatens to polygraph and prosecute FBI agents. This is not, as a general rule, a thin-lipped bunch of Silent Cals.
The Department of Homeland Security has been an honorable exception to that general rule; its personnel have been, at least by Trump Administration standards, fairly disciplined about airing their grievances in public. That’s where the Kremlinology comes in. The latest intel suggests that a real behind-the-curtain fight is happening between two factions at DHS – one, personified by policy majordomo Stephen Miller, and the other, by bureaucratic knife-fighter (and Cava enjoyer) Tom Homan. The Homanites appear to be winning. The purpose of this advertorial is tell you why we think that is true, and provide a bit of speculation about why.
First, why do we think it is true? Not every resignation means a change in policy; sometimes, when the chief of the Border Patrol resigns after widespread accusations that he flew to Thailand, Colombia, and Mexico to avail himself of the services of prostitutes, it’s just an HR thing. But some reshuffles are more significant, and we think the following four suggest a new policy direction.
(1) Kristi Noem is out, and Markwayne Mullin is in. Secretary Noem performed her duties in vapid, vigorous, indecent, indecorous style, and she consistently personified the most outré and bizarre actions by the immigration enforcement bureaucracy, from calling protesters ‘domestic terrorists’ to LARPing as a HSI agent during raids. Former Sen. Mullin has taken a different public tack. Secretary Mullin – echoing public comments from Tom Homan – has repeated in interviews that DHS is targeting “the worst of the worst” rather than engaging in broad sweeps, and has said that the Minnesota operation, which led to the deaths of several American citizens, will not occur again. ” Secretary Mullin recently remarked, “[m]y goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day.” We don’t think you’ll see him posing at CECOT in a Rolex. (more…)
For years, ARLnow used to do what most local news outlets would do when there was a crime story to report: include the suspect’s name and (often) a mugshot.
Times change, however, and we now generally avoid use of mugshots except when there’s a greater news value in running them. And we no longer name criminal suspects, with the exception of public figures, those involved in major criminal cases, and situations in which the suspect’s identity is a key component of the story.
There’s good news and bad news on the Covid front in Arlington.
The bad news is that the graph of new Covid cases continues going up and to the right. Arlington set fresh single-day and seven-day case records today, with 359 new cases reported today and a seven-day moving average of 258 cases per day, well exceeding the previous records — set yesterday.
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Nearly all county operations and services, including COVID-19 testing sites and vaccine clinics, are set to be closed during the Christmas and New Years holidays.
County government offices, courts, community centers, and libraries, will all be closed on Friday, Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), Saturday, Dec. 25 (Christmas Day), Friday, Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve), and Saturday, Jan. 1 (New Year’s Day).
Koch Groups Moving to Ballston — “A group of nonprofits founded and supported in part by billionaire Charles Koch are moving to a combined 185K SF in the Ballston Exchange office complex owned by Jamestown, sources confirmed to Bisnow. Stand Together, Americans for Prosperity and the Charles Koch Institute, in addition to affiliated organizations, plan to occupy the space in 2023, a source familiar with the deal said.” [Bisnow]
Football and History in Halls Hill — “They were there — about a hundred mostly Black residents and former residents, gathered together on this sunny, crisp Thanksgiving morning — for the neighborhood’s annual Turkey Bowl… For more than fifty years, so-called ‘Old Heads’ in maroon jerseys and ‘Young Heads’ in yellow have squared off in this Halls Hill tradition — ‘since before Martin Luther King’s birthday was a holiday,’ says one longtime resident, Paul Terry, who has been living in Halls Hill since 1968. ‘It’s always fun.'” [DCist]
(Updated at 5:40 p.m.) A local nonprofit intends to redevelop and add affordable housing for people with disabilities to its property near Crystal City.
Melwood, which connects people with disabilities with public- and private-sector jobs and opportunities, currently runs a workforce development site from the building at 750 23rd Street S., in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood.
(Updated at 2:15 p.m.) A woman suffered potentially life-threatening injuries after a crash in front of the Clarendon Whole Foods on Wednesday.
Initial reports suggest that the woman was walking in the area when the crash occurred on Clarendon Blvd and the force of the collision sent two vehicles careening onto the sidewalk, knocking down a light pole.
(Updated at 10:45 a.m.) Arlington County police are investigating after two people were found dead in an apartment near Ballston on Wednesday.
The investigation is taking place at the Clarendon Court Apartments complex, located on the 3800 block of 6th Street N. in the Ashton Heights neighborhood, about two blocks from the Gold’s Gym. Detectives could be seen using a ladder to take photos of the apartment, which is on the second floor of a two-story garden-style building.
