Photograph by Julio Cortez/AP Photo

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talks during a town hall meeting at Raritan Valley Community College, on April 11, 2013, in Branchburg, N.J.

One of the fun parts of being governor, Chris Christie tells the schoolchildren:

“Any bugs on your desk, you’re allowed to kill them without getting in trouble.”

Faced with an uninvited visitor making himself comfortable in his office, the New Jersey governor didn’t wait for his bodyguards. He sent the trespasser to his doom: Splat!

Video of the 50-year-old governor greasing a spider, as his fourth-grader Bridget and tour-taking classmates giggled, was posted on his YouTube channel today.

“Where is he?” the governor said, stooping over his desk. “There he is.”

Icky things, somehow, are always “he.”

A child, spotting an office tool, suggested: “Let’s staple him.” The remark, one presumes, was directed toward the critter and not the 50-year-old Republican who is running for a second term.

Christie instead chose his left hand, and that was the end of that. The children laughed and clapped.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “That’s also another fun part of being governor. Any bugs on your desk — you’re allowed to kill them without getting in trouble.”

Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, said the governor is not, in fact, arachnophobic.

“Impressive constituent relations,” Drewniak, referring to the governor’s young visitors, said in an e-mail. “Too bad fourth-graders can’t vote.”

We couldn’t help but think of President Barack Obama’s equally cool-handed swatting of a fly during an interview with CNBC a few years back. “Nice,” said interviewer John Harwood.

“I got the sucker,” the president said proudly.

(Aren’t the spiders supposed to take care of the flies?)

Original post is Christie Kills Spider for Schoolkids, Channeling Obama’s Fly-Swatting by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., right, check on judges former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., left, and House Chaplain Patrick Conroy during the second annual ‘hotdish’ competition in the Capitol Visitor Center, featuring casserole-like dishes from members of the Minnesota Congressional Delegation, on March 7, 2012. The dishes of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Rep. Chip Cravaack, R-Minn., tied for first place in the competition.

Can you smell what Congress is cooking?

Tater-tots and more, washed down with Jell-O.

Not to mention Rep. Michele Bachmann’s volcanic “Metro” dish with a whole can of sweet corn, or Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s hold-the-SPAM (not to be confused with e-mail) pepperoni special.

Al Franken, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, has a well-known sense of humor harking to his SNL days. (And who can forget his 2006 pre-Senate remarks about Dick Cheney shooting a hunting partner in the face?)

But who knew he also had a chef’s eye bigger than the average person’s stomach?

The Minnesota delegation’s bipartisan “Hotdish-Off” plays on a fine Minnesota tradition — the “hotdish,” usually, as it’s explained at Franken’s official Senate Web-site, a casserole that “goes real good” with Jell-O or a salad.

In the annual contest initiated by Franken two years ago, his own “Mom’s Mahnomin Madness Hotdish” tied for first place with a former congressman’s “Minnesota Wild Strata Hotdish” last year.

Klobuchar took top honors in 2011 with a “Taconite Tater-Tot Hotdish.”

In the latest dish-off, served up on April 10, Rep. Tim Walsh’s “Hermann the German Hotdish” (brats and a bottle of Schell’s beer are the keys) captured first-place, competing with Rep. Rick Nolan’s “Real Deal Danger Ranger Hotdish” (venison, presumably not roadk kill, and wild rice) and Bachmann’s “Southwest Metro Hotdish” (something to do with a can of Green Giant sweet corn and taco seasoning — not to mention two pounds of the ever-popular tater tots).

Rep. Keith Ellison weighed in with a “Juicy Lucy Hotdish” (crumbled hamburger buns, ground beef, mushrooms  and cheese),” and Rep. Betty McCollum cooked “Beef, Beer and Biscuits” in her hotdish.

And Klobuchar was back this year with her “Hormel `I Can’t Believe it’s not SPAM’ Pepperoni Pizza Hotdish”), a mix of donkey meat, hamburger and Ronzoni rotini.

As for Franken, he stuck with Willmar Stew, which he assures us goes well with a Vikings game and, as everyone should know, requires a dutch oven and two pounds of Cannelini beans soaked overnight, turkey thighs — duck or pheasant will do — pork roast plus sausage, bacon and butter and a medley of vegetables (for health) salted to taste.

All the hotdish recipes are here.

And that Cheney talk is here.

Original post is Tater Tots and Pepperoni (Hold the SPAM) — What Congress is Cooking by Political Capital.

Edward R. Murrow?

This was no Anderson Cooper 360. This was an awakening for Americans who knew little of their own nation’s practices.

This was about how “the humans who feed the best-fed people in the world get hired.”

And here, some 53 years later, the Congress of the United States of America is getting around, again, to addressing the fate of the people who pick most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S. — that would be the farmworkers, many of them undocumented immigrants.

As part of a comprehensive immigration reform that President Barack Obama has been demanding — and President George W. Bush before him  – a bipartisan group of senators, much like the current and past president, are almost ready to propose the farthest reaching overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in three decades. Much of the focus is on the path to citizenship for the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. But much of the hangup in the achievement of an agreement — ready to be revealed on Tuesday — involved those farmworkers.

Bloomberg’s Alan Bjerga reports tonight:

Farm groups agreed on a rolling visa limit for immigrant farmworkers and minimum wages for laborers, resolving sticking points on the path toward a broader rewrite of U.S. immigration law.

Wages will be set based on labor-market surveys that distinguish among different farm jobs, and visas for guest workers will be limited to no more than 337,000 over three years, according to lobbyists for organizations that resolved disagreements today.

Ending the discord means growers and workers groups can back the legislative effort that will include creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“This is a crucial step as momentum builds toward introducing a bill to fix” the immigration system, Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, said of the agreement.

See the full Bloomberg report on the farmworker agreement here:

And, if you have a spare hour, check out that Harvest of Shame. Or see it here:

Original post is Farmworker Deal: Harvest of Pride? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, center, arrives for the weekly Republican policy luncheon on the Capitol on April 9, 2013 in Washington, DC.

There is Hollywood, and then there is Louisville.

And Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate from Kentucky who privately discussed ways to “do out” anyone who opposes him for re-election, has turned an audio-taping of that February meeting with his staff that went public into a fundraising ploy.

“I stand with Senator McConnell against illegal wiretapping,” the solicitation from “Team Mitch” goes. “The liberal left” has been “exposed” for wiretapping the senator’s camapign headquarters, they complained on Twitter:

The liberal left is exposed for illegally wiretapping our campaign HQ. Stand with Sen. McConnell against this: teammitch.com/wiretap/?src=t…

— Team Mitch (@Team_Mitch) April 9, 2013

Mother Jones magazine, which published the recording online, has maintained that no wire-tapping was involved. This is the same publication that revealed a secret videotaping of Mitt Romney at a fundraising event last year complaining that he cannot reach the 47 percent of Americans dependent on the government.

In this case, McConnell is heard telling his staff in early February: “This is the Whack-A-Mole period of the campaign… When anybody sticks their head up, do them out.”

In the case of Ashley Judd, the singing and acting star of Memphis and Hollywood who considered seeking the Democratic nomination for McConnell’s seat in 2014, the staff noted some particular vulnerabilities — including a past battle with depression acknowledged in a 2011 memoir.

The operatives of Team Mitch are also overheard making fun of Judd’s religious beliefs, playing a recording of her saying: “I still choose the God of my understanding as the God of my childhood. I have to expand my God concept from time to time, and you know particularly I enjoy native faith practices, and have a very nature-based God concept. I’d like to think I’m like St. Francis in that way. Brother Donkey, Sister Bird.”

One of McConnell’s staffers is heard saying mockingly: “Brother Donkey, Sister Bird!”

Another staffer suggests: “The people at Southeast Christian [Church] would take to the streets with pitchforks.”

Louisville, meet Hollywood: TMZ is on the case.

McConnell himself was asked at the Capitol yesterday if it was appropriate for members of his staff to talk about Judd’s bouts with depression as a potential campaign tool.

“Well, as you know, last month my wife’s ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky, and then apparently they also bugged my headquarters,” he replied. “So I think that pretty well sums up the way the political left is operating in Kentucky.”

A reporter repeated the question: “Is it fair game for you… to question someone’s mental health or their religious sensibilities in a strategy session like that?”

“Yeah, as I indicated, last month they were attacking my wife’s ethnicity, and then apparently, also unbeknownst to us at the time, they were bugging our headquarters — quite a Nixonian move,” McConnell said. “This is what you get from the political left in America, these days.”

Third try, question posed again, third answer: “As I indicated, last week they were attacking my wife’s ethnicity, and apparently also bugging my headquarters, much like Nixon and Watergate. That’s what the political left does, these days.”

Never mind a Republican leader citing the dirty tricks of a former president of his own party — or mixing the metaphors. The Watergate was broken into. It was the Oval Office of the White House that was bugged, by the sitting president.

In Kentucky, attacks from the left of any variety are fighting words. And McConnell was quick to turn the tables on this episode in the ongoing saga of secret tapes gone public at Mother Jones — it was Judd whom his staff was targeting, but now it is McConnell, calling on the FBI to investigate the “Nixonian” bugging of his office, who has been targeted. Victimization works wonders in fundraising, and on TV.

McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao, a former Labor secretary, cut a campaign ad recently addressing a group’s use of her Asian heritage. “Progress Kentucky” in February suggested on Twitter that Chao, born in Taiwan, had helped send American jobs to China during her term as labor secretary under President George W. Bush.

“Now, far-left special interests are also attacking my ethnicity, even attacking Mitch’s patriotism because he’s married to me. That’s how low some people will stoop,” she said in the ad. “Mitch loves Kentucky. We love Kentucky. The meanest personal attacks can never change that.”

Original post is McConnell Turns Table on ‘Liberal Left:’ Louisville Fundraising Bonanza by Political Capital.

Photograph by Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP Photo

A Palestinian activist wearing a mask of President Barack Obama, holds a Rosa Parks’ mug shot, in the West Bank town of Hebron, on March 20, 2013.

Many Palestinians may not be as overjoyed about President Barack Obama’s arrival in the Middle East today as the Palestinian rappers in a video prepared by the American Consulate General in Israel suggests.

“We welcome you to Palestine,” the rappers say, in a video prepared for YouTube as Obama prepares for a stop in Ramallah during his three-day tour through Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

“Our hands are reaching for peace,” they rap.

Were it so simple.

Original post is Obama’s Welcome: Palestinian Rappers by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sascha Darmer/DAPD/AP Photo

Beyonce in Berlin in this file photo.

Beyonce played Obama’s inauguration.

Beyonce is going to play the Super Bowl.

The singer was lip-syncing outside the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

She was not lip-syncing, it appeared, at her news conference today in advance of her Super Bowl half-time performance Sunday.

The singer asked the attendees of the conference to stand.

Then she belted out the National Anthem a cappella.

“Any questions,” she asked.

Yes, there was a question about that inaugural performance.

“I am a perfectionist,” she explained, somewhat nervously. “I practice until my feet bleed… I did not have time to practice with the orchestra (The President’s Marine Band) … I did not feel comfortable taking a risk” in the singing of the anthem for President Barack Obama’s second swearing-in on Jan. 21. “I am very proud of my performance.”

Come Sunday, the show will not be on Memorex: “I will absolutely be singing live,” she said of Super Bowl XLVII. “This is what I was born to do.”

Original post is Beyonce Belts Out Anthem: Super Bowl Preview by Political Capital.

Photograph by Cal Sport Media via AP Images

Notre Dame inside linebacker Manti Te’o during the Discover BCS National Championship between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

Everybody on Twitter seems to have jokes when it comes to Manti Te’o and the hoax of his fictitious girlfriend. So far be it from the National Republican Congressional Committee to miss out on its chance.

“The last time the Senate passed a budget… Manti Te’o had not “met” Lennay Kekua yet.” the NRCC wrote on Twitter.

Ouch.

The whole point of the missive — at the Notre Dame linebacker’s expense — is to highlight that the Senate hasn’t adopted a budget since April 2009. Budgets are, technically, supposed to be passed annually, though the business of government keeps on keeping on even if they don’t because spending decisions are made through appropriations.

And yes, the tweet does exist.

House Speaker John Boehner’s office got in on the action earlier today, sending out a YouTube clip of “the Bobs” from the movie “Office Space.” They’re consultants who ask a busybody employee who’s always “working” but has little to show for it just “what would you say, you do here?”

The House will vote next week on a plan to tie a three-month increase in the federal debt ceiling to a provision that would block lawmakers’ pay if the House or Senate doesn’t pass a budget in that time-frame.

Original post is Manti Te’o: Meet the Senate’s Budget by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

The Capitol building stands in Washington.

House Speaker John Boehner will hold a news conference this morning to lay out the next steps on averting the fiscal cliff after yielding to anti-tax resistance within his own party and scrapping “Plan B” to allow higher rates on annual income above $1 million.

Stocks fell worldwide, treasuries gained and the yen strengthened against its peers after the failure threw the already-stalled budget talks further into turmoil and cast doubt on Boehner’s ability to navigate the competing political and legislative forces bearing down on him.

President Barack Obama urged gun-control advocates to pressure lawmakers to ban sales of military-style assault weapons In a video posted today on Google Inc.’s YouTube website.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will speak at funeral services for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at Washington National Cathedral.

Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller attend a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetary this afternoon for Pan Am 103, which was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, 24 years ago today, killing all aboard including 189 Americans.

The Senate will be trying to finish up business before a shortened Christmas break. Look for votes on defense authorization and on cutting off debate over a disaster-relief bill.

Also today, the Environmental Protection Agency may announce the latest version of the Boiler MACT rule, a regulation opposed by paper companies and other manufacturers. Robert Khuzami, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement division’s pursuit of financial industry wrongdoing, plans to step down. And the ITC announces the next step in a patent-infringement case filed against LG Electronics Inc. by Taiwan research institute over backlight modules for LCD televisions.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Stepping Closer to the Cliff by Political Capital.

Photograph by Susan Walsh/AP Photo

President Barack Obama gets a hug after speaking at the Rodon Group, which manufactures over 95% of the parts for K'NEX Brands toys, on Nov. 30, 2012, in Hatfield, Pa.

“The polling is with the president on this,” one media commentator says.

The president campaigned on this, another says of President Barack Obama’s plan to tax the wealthiest Americans more — “the clear mandate of this election.”

While Republican leaders complain of Obama continuing to campaign like an election candidate in the “fiscal cliff negotiations” underway on Capitol Hill, the Obama campaign is rallying supporters to do just that: Pressing the administration’s message that the typical middle-class family of four stands to lose $2,200 a year if Congress lets all the Bush-era tax cuts expire at year’s end.

“Right now, President Obama is asking you to think about what $2,000 a year means to you and your family — because Congress needs to hear it,” Stephanie Cutter, the Obama re-election campaign’s deputy press secretary, says in an e-mail to supporters with a YouTube collection of Obama’s campaign promises to tax the wealthier harder and spare the middle class. “President Obama is asking Congress to do the right thing and act before the New Year, but he needs our help. We’ve got a good track record here: When we make our voices heard and urge Congress to take action — whether it’s about health care, student loans, Wall Street reform, or `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – they listen.”

“For more than 19 months, President Obama campaigned on the idea that if we’re going to be successful, every American has to do their part and pay their fair share,” Cutter says in the pitch. `A centerpiece of his platform, and the campaign you built, was that income taxes should not go up on the middle class — that the responsible way to pay down the deficit, while investing in education, job training, research, and science, is to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more.”

“None of this is a surprise to anyone in Washington,” Cutter says in closing. “They heard the same arguments we did — they paid attention to the campaign, and then they saw a clear majority of voters deliver a verdict on November 6th.”

Original post is Obama’s ’12 (Fiscal Cliff) Campaign by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Mitt and Ann Romney voted this morning near their home in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Asked who won his vote, Romney said, “I think you know.”

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama already had voted early, and returned from their final campaign rally after midnight, rising this morning in their home town of Chicago.

The Republican presidential nominee will head out today for two final campaign rallies in Cleveland and Pittsburgh before returning to Boston this afternoon to await the election results.

The president was planning a visit of volunteers working at turning out the vote today, and he has some basketball on his agenda before awaiting the election results tonight in Chicago.

Both Obama and Romney are giving Election Day interviews with media in key swing states.

Meanwhile, here’s some added early vote intelligence from YouTube:

It’s unlikely that any of the tracking polls counted the three American members of Sir Paul McCartney’s band who say they already have voted by mail for Obama — McCartney himself lends a symbolic endorsement with his own words for re-election: “Get Back.”

Lisa Lerer and Margaret Talev contributed

Original post is Romney Votes, McCartney Endorses by Political Capital.