Photograph by Ty Wright/Bloomberg

A combine harvests a field of corn in Ohio.

Fifteen members of the House and Senate or their spouses benefited from federal farm subsidies last year, underscoring a personal stake for some lawmakers in a congressional debate that resumes this week over spending on agriculture programs.

The U.S. won’t join U.K., France and other major Western allies at the United Nations today to sign the first international treaty regulating the $85 billion a year global arms trade.

Manufacturing in the U.S. probably made little progress in May, economists said before a report from the Institute for Supply Management’s factory index.

The Bradley Manning trial starts Fort Meade, Md., for releasing “Afghan War Diary,” “The Iraq War Logs,” and “Collateral Murder Video.”

A House Appropriations panel hears from Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel and Inspector General J. Russell George on targeting groups seeking tax-exempt status. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaks at Health Datapalooza conference. The Aerospace Industries Association holds a discussion on space exploration.

And did you know that about 41 percent of U.S. adults 65 years or older reported their health was excellent or very good in 2009-2011? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that families with higher income were more likely to report excellent or very good health compared with other income levels. Non- Hispanic whites were more likely to report the best healthcompared with Asians, Hispanics or blacks.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Family Farms by Political Capital.

Photograph by Servizio Fotografico L'Osservatore Romano via Getty Images

Jorge Mario Bergoglio attends his first Mass with cardinals as Pope Francis in the Sistine Chapel on March 14, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican.

Joe Torsella, the U.S. ambassador for management and reform at the United Nations, calls himself an Average Joe “fighting to cut waste on behalf of the American taxpayer” in the bloated world body.

He is also a good Catholic who’s been paying attention to the election of Pope Francis.

He tweeted:

As budget committee considers excessive #UN biz class travel, attn delegates: new pope takes the bus & flies coach. Habemus Good Example.

— Joe Torsella (@USJoe_UN) March 14, 2013

Torsella sports an Italian surname and is a Philadelphian. Jorge Mario Bergaglio’s origins are Piedmontese and he was born in Buenos Aires.

Heritage is not all they seem to share. Both flout luxuries. In the case of the former cardinal, it was a downgrade from an archbishop’s palace to a modest flat and an economy seat in Alitalia SpA in lieu of more spacious seating up front.

Reports emerged last week that Torsella reprimanded his colleagues for showing up drunk at protracted and often tedious budget negotiations that tend to cut into the holidays at the end of the year.

“While my government is truly grateful for the strategic opportunities presented by some recent practices, lets save the champagne for toasting the successful end of the session, and do some credit to the Fifth Committee’s reputation in the process,” he told his colleagues, according to Foreign Policy.

Original post is UN Fat Cats Should Learn from Bus-Taking Pope, U.S. Ambassador Says by Political Capital.

Photograph by Saif Sahlah/AFP via Getty Images

Palestinians wave national flags during a gathering in the West Bank city of Jenin on Nov. 29, 2012 to support Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas who is heading to the United Nations General Assembly today with huge backing for his bid for UN recognition of statehood.

Just because a United Nations name plate calls you a state, that doesn’t make you one.

Still, at the world body, any entity, state or non-state can name itself.

Following a largely symbolic vote in the UN’s 193-member General Assembly, the Palestinians changed their name to “State of Palestine” on all their stationery and asked UN protocol to go along with that. The UN’s etiquette office agreed on Dec. 17: “Pursuant to your request, the designation of `State of Palestine’ shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents.”

The Americans were not pleased. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice today took exception to the rebranding, even if it’s confined to the 17 acres occupied by the world body in New York’s Midtown:

“Any reference to the `State of Palestine’ in the United Nations, including the use of the term `State of Palestine’ on the placard in the Security Council or the use of the term `State of Palestine’ in the invitation to this meeting or other arrangements for participation in this meeting, do not reflect acquiescence that `Palestine’ is a state.”

The Palestinians were quick to respond.

“It doesn’t matter if any country voted against” the designation,’ said Riad Malki, introduced at a Security Council meeting on the Palestinian question as foreign minister to the State of Palestine. `We expect all member states of the United Nations to respect, to adhere, the decision that was taken by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 29th of November of 2012.”

Nine nations voted against this: the U.S., Israel, Canada, Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

Original post is Rice Riled by Palestine Placard by Political Capital.

Photograph by Gianluigi Guercua/AFP via Getty Images

A Libyan woman raises her ink stained finger as she leaves a polling station after voting for Libya's General National Assembly in Tripoli on July 7, 2012.

Written by Flavia Krause-Jackson in New York

Even after a bruising week on Capitol Hill ducking cameras, Susan Rice has kept her voice alive on Twitter.

Today was no exception.

As @ambassadorrice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations branded the world body’s recognition of Palestine as an observer state “unfortunate & counterproductive.” With her trademark bluntness, she typed:

“Progress towards a just & lasting two-state solution cannot be made by pressing a green voting button in NY.’

and: “Long after the votes have been cast & speeches forgotten, it’s the Palestinians & Israelis who must still talk – and listen – to each other. ”
At one time disdainful of Twitter, the aspiring secretary of  state is a convert to the micro-blogging site, where she has more followers than  @VP Joe Biden and three times the number of that other famous Rice, Condoleezza.

The controversy surrounding her infamous Sept. 16 comments about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Beghazi, Libya,  has only boosted her popularity, and she now is edging toward the 230,000 mark.

Online — as in real life — she has fans as well as haters.

The 140-character limit on Twitter lends itself to Rice’s own personal style.

“I guess you could say I’m plainspoken,” she  told her Stanford alumni magazine in an interview in January 2000. “I can be diplomatic when I have to be. But I don’t have a lot of patience for B.S.”

Disgusted that Russia and China prevented the #UN Security Council from fulfilling its sole purpose, she typed furiously off her BlackBerry after a double veto on Syria. The so-called referendum yesterday in #Syria was clearly a sham, she wrote about President Bashar al-Assad’s efforts to address the unrest.

She has tweeted around the world. On a surprise visit to Libya, she said: #Libyan #women kick butt. On a trip to Kenya with colleagues from the Security Council, she told the Somali president: “get your act together.”

Still, her missives are not all about work.

At the end of the Jazz Day concert at the UN with Stevie Wonder, she mused:

“The General Assembly Hall has never been so cool and may never be again. #JazzDay”

Some are even intensely personal, such as the message on Jan. 27, when she gave her deceased father, Emmett Rice, a shout-out about a movie night. She tweeted: “My family & I saw #RedTails last weekend. Riveting, action-packed & moving film. Made me even more proud of my late Dad, a Tuskegee Airman.”

Original post is Rice Tweets: Libyan Women Kick… by Political Capital.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., center, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2012, stating they'd block the nomination Susan Rice as Secretary of State. Photographer: J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

President Barack Obama had some fighting words today for the senator he faced in 2008:

If Sen. John McCain and allied Republican Lindsey Graham want to complain about the administration’s handling of the attack against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Obama said, the senator who served as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in ’08 shouldn’t be picking on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice — they should “go after” him.

The president’s ire for his erstwhile rival from Arizona and political ally from South Carolina involves his reported interest in nominating Rice for secretary of state, which he wouldn’t confirm in a White House news conference today. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to step aside soon, opening the nation’s chief diplomatic post for appointment. McCain, criticizing Rice for her public representations of what initially happened in Benghazi, is speaking out against her nomination as secretary of state.

“If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody? They should go after me,” Obama said today. “And I’m happy to have that discussion with them.”

“But for them to go after the UN ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi?” he said, “And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received? And to besmirch her reputation is outrageous. And, you know, we’re after an election now.”

“But when they go after the UN  ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me,” the president said.

McCain, who had raised his complaints about Rice during the 2012 election campaign, is drawing a certain line now.

“I will do everything in my power to block her from being the United States Secretary of State,” McCain, an outspoken critic of the administration’s explanations of Benghazi, said in an appearance on Fox News. “She has proven that she either doesn’t understand or she is not willing to accept evidence on its face. There is no doubt five days later what this attack was.”

Without confirming his thinking on the State appointment, Obama said at his news conference: “Let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill, and professionalism, and toughness, and grace. As I’ve said before (on the question of Benghazi), she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her.”

He said:  “And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity at the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.”

Original post is Obama to McCain: `Go After Me’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Lucas Jackson -Pool/Getty Images

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton poses for a photograph prior to the tenth anniversary ceremonies of the September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center.

Most people who meet Hillary Clinton on the street want a picture.

Snapping it is the hard part.

“Whenever I walk around New York, as I did yesterday at the conclusion of a week in New York for the UN General Assembly, I am greeted by people from all over the world — most of whom want to take a picture,” the secretary of state said today at a “Strategic Dialog on Travel and Tourism” at the State Department in Washington.

“And I don’t mind — if they just can figure out how to use their cameras,” she said to laughter.

“That is my big problem,” said Clinton, also a former first lady, senator from New York and candidate for her party’s presidential nomination in 2008. “I am more than happy to stop for 30 seconds to take a picture, but what happens invariably is, people get so nervous, they can’t figure out how to make the camera work, and then I’ve got people trying to help them to get their camera to work. ”

Terry Atlas contributed. 

Original post is Hillary Clinton Smiles: That Button! by Political Capital.

Photograph by Amir Narimani/document IRAN/Bloomberg

A poster of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, next to a balloon with a nuclear logo during a rally marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Tehran.

It’s a day of watchfulness in Washington. President Barack Obama is promising to keep an eye on Iran and its nuclear program, the Environmental Protection Agency is scrutinizing Chevron Corp.’s environmental practices and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt will talk about how best to watch over companies that manage investments.

Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly, where he’ll pledge that the U.S. is committed to keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and say that the time for diplomacy “is not unlimited,” according to speech excerpts released by the White House. Later, he’ll follow Mitt Romney to the stage to discuss good governance at the Clinton Global Initiative conference, also in New York. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will appear on a panel at the Clinton event.

The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Manufacturers release a survey on election-year business climate in the U.S. And today is the deadline for Representative Todd Akin to petition  Missouri state courts to remove him from the ballot for the U.S. Senate. Akin has been under pressure from within the Republican party to quit the race against Democratic incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill because of his controversial remarks on abortion last month.

The EPA is investigating Chevron’s Richmond, California refinery after officials determined pollution controls were bypassed, Bloomberg News reported today. The International Monetary Fund releases portions of Global Financial Stability Report. And Harvey Pitt, who served as chairman of the SEC from 2001 to 2003 and is now CEO of Kalorama Partners LLC, speaks on investment regulation at the Cato Institute.

Also today, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana discuss the U.S. and EU response to Arab Spring, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski discusses broadband expansion at a Vox Media event.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Watchfulness by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama appears on the television show "The View" at ABC Studios in New York City in this file pohto.

Though he didn’t find the time to meet face to face with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran, President Barack Obama has found time for Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters and the rest of the cast on ABC’s “The View,” with a little more than six weeks to go before election day.

The president and First Lady Michele Obama will tape their first joint appearance on the show today, before attending a welcoming reception for heads of state at the start of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

Speaking of the Big Apple, Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard speaks at Economic Club of New York today, where she may have to defend her defense of comments made last week by Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan, who said that “cranks and crazies” in U.S. Republican Party are threatening the global economy.

Back in Washington, the House and Senate have begun their pre-election recess, with crucial votes on the farm bill, sequestration and other legislation put off until a lame-duck session following the Nov. 6 election.

The National Association for Business Economics sponsors holds a debate at the National Press Club on economic policy with Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute for the Romney campaign and Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard University for Obama. Also at the NPC today, Harold Varmus, director of National Cancer Institute, Nobel laureate and co-chair of President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, speaks on impediments to cancer research.

The Freedom House releases a report rating internet access, censorship and user rights in 47 countries at Google’s Washington office, while FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski discusses the potential of mobile health technology for patient care at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event, then attends a Comcast forum on broadband adoption.

Also today, Mexico President Felipe Calderon speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations on relations with the U.S. and recent developments in Mexico. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the Clinton Global Initiative on “Designing Diplomacy for the 21st Century” in New York and the State Department honors surviving passengers of the MS St. Louis, a German steamer carrying 937 German Jewish refugees that were denied entry into the U.S. in 1939.

Original post is Washington Daybook: The View by Political Capital.