The Lightbulb Moment That Led to ‘Gridlock’

Solon-turned-author Byron Dorgan told HOH he got the idea for his forthcoming novel “Gridlock” — a geopolitical thriller focused on the sabotaging of the American electrical grid — while perusing a Wall Street Journal “What If?” piece regarding U.S. vulnerabilities.

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“There’s a lot of discussion of cyber-terror. What it might mean. What form it may take,” the retired North Dakota Democratic senator said of the book, which hits stores July 9.

The second in a series of energy-disaster-related yarns, “Gridlock” pits returning protagonists Nate Osborne (lawman) and Ashley Borden (journalist) against foreign governments (Iran, Venezuela), cyber-threats (a Russian computer virus) and our own bravado.

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John Cornyn Has Issues

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn is very worried about lots of things these days. But rather than obsess about them in isolation, he’s inviting everyone to weigh in on the political head-scratchers as part of his “Issue Advisers” campaign.

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HOH has received two such pleas for guidance just within the past week.

Before giving up any more of our personal information to the email-harvesting operation, we demanded to know whether this new relationship would be a two-way street.

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Overheard: The Lamentations of the Expos

“It’s still painful.”

— A baseball fan from Montreal attending Sunday’s Washington Nationals-Chicago Cubs game at Nationals Park. The Montreal Expos left Canada in 2004 to become the Nationals.

Charlie Brotman, former announcer for the Washington Senators, holds up a license plate celebrating the move of the Montreal Expos to Washington at a November 2004 event announcing the team’s renaming to Nationals. (CQ Roll Call File Photo)

The Frost/Clinton Tapes

Budding filmmaker Jaiden Frost doesn’t necessarily consider himself a political animal. But he’s waded into the field with his recent tribute to pre-eminent lady politician Hillary Rodham Clinton, “White Room”:

“I wanted to feature someone who has been a true inspiration and a powerful woman in our country. She was the first person who came to mind,” Frost told HOH of his draw to the former FLOTUS/New York senator/secretary of State.

After digging through The Daily Beast’s treasure trove of Clinton clips, Frost married the former presidential candidate’s rhetoric to his dreamlike homage to women’s rights.

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‘A Taste of America’ Votes Coming In Fast and Furious

Forget about what may or may not be happening on the floor.

The real action (at least this week) has been happening in cyberspace, as pols and food lovers put on their lobbying hats to help shepherd treasured goodies through CQ Roll Call’s month-long “A Taste of America” food fight.

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The contest, which will whittle 64 signature eats to eight contenders over the next several weeks, is already shaping up to be a doozy. The winner will be revealed June 13 at a reception during the 52nd Annual CQ Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.

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Eva Longoria: Could She Be Here for the Food?

Actress Eva Longoria made one of her not-infrequent stops in Washington on Wednesday to testify on Capitol Hill, and she told HOH there’s a good reason to come to D.C. other than for political/policy reasons or the cherry blossoms.

“I’m a big foodie,” she told HOH, saying Washington’s burgeoning restaurant scene is home to some great eats.

Longoria has a lot of reasons to visit Washington. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

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Bryce Harper: Washington’s Most Powerful Nevadan

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will need to reconcile the fact that he’s no longer the most powerful Nevadan in Washington.

That honor falls to Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals’ star outfielder and slugger. And since Harper is all of 20 years old, coming off a National League Rookie of the Year season and is a prospect for Most Valuable Player this year on a contending team, Reid will likely have to get used to it, unless the Nationals lose their minds and trade Harper.

To get an idea of how this all happened, Las Vegas sportswriter Rob Miech is popping into town to talk about his book “Phenom: The Making of Bryce Harper” at the University Club on Thursday. It should be interesting for anyone wanting to learn a little more about the dude who’s knocked Reid off his perch as the Silver State’s most popular native son in D.C.

Washington Nationals outfielder Harper, left, has quickly become the most popular Nevadan in Washington, D.C. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

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#Yourtime, #Mytime, Doesn’t That Make It … Our Time?

As the House prepares to consider legislation on Wednesday on comp-time legislation, House Republicans have been urging working-class Americans to share how they might spend comp days via the #Yourtime thread.

A quick HOH survey of the Twitters reveals more Republican members flogging their bill than American working-class types, but we did spy a retweet from one of the legacy Run DMC members, the Reverend Run, aka Joseph Simmons.

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Rainn Wilson’s Baha’i Background and Iran’s Prisoners of Conscience

Hollywood actor Rainn Wilson, best known for bringing life to the aggravating geekery of Dwight Schrute in the NBC sitcom “The Office,” is using his celebvocat status to advocate for the release of seven religious leaders currently imprisoned in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Wilson was raised Baha’i by his parents, who converted in the 1960s, he told HOH.

The Baha’is of the United States, an official organization, says that the Iranian government has wrongly imprisoned seven Baha’i leaders and given them unreasonably harsh 20-year sentences.

“They’re not out to convert people,” Wilson said in an interview before an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Monday. “They’re just out to have their faith.”

Wilson speaks about the state of Baha’i prisoners to an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (Julie Ershadi/CQ Roll Call)

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Air Force Sex Assault Arrest Highlight’s Filmmakers’ Quest

A key point in last year’s Academy Award nominated documentary “The Invisible War” was that the military was structurally incapable of adequately policing sexual assault in the armed services. As if to bolster the filmmakers’ case, the Air Force officer in charge of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch has been arrested and charged with sexual battery.

“The DoD estimates that, on average, there are more than 50 sexual assaults involving military personnel each day. The only thing unusual about this particular assault is that the accused was actually arrested and charged, and that senior officers in his chain of command cannot intervene to prevent his prosecution,” Kirby Dick, the director of “The Invisible War,” told CQ Roll Call. His film’s key tenet is that the military does not follow standard criminal justice procedures in sexual assault cases, keeping them within the chain of command, and that this has helped lead to an epidemic of sexual assault in the armed forces.

Filmmakers Kirby Dick, left, and Amy Ziering promoted their film “The Invisible War,” about military sexual assault, in Washington last year. (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski was arrested by Arlington County, Va., police on Sunday in a Crystal City, Va., parking lot, as first reported by ARLnow. According to the police report “a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police.” Krusinski was arrested, charged and held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

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Panetta’s FleishmanHillard Gig ‘Not a Massive Commitment’

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has rejoined the advisory board of global communications giant FleishmanHillard, but the new gig isn’t expected to be terribly taxing.

Fictional Franchise: Children’s Novel Edition

In the latest edition of HOH’s Fictional Franchise, in which we examine fictional characters and the real-life people who represent them in Congress, we took a look at our favorite heroes and heroines from childhood.

And in what is probably one of the greatest thrills to be had in life, a special celebrity guest contributed to this column (via her assistant): Judy Blume.

The rules go like this: We decide where a fictional character lives and then look up who represents them in the House. (See more here.) We welcome any dispute with our assessments in the comments section below.

We must … we must … we must … start with:

Margaret Simon
“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” by Judy Blume
Farbrook, N.J., Republican Rep. Leonard Lance

There is no more iconic young adult character than the pre-teen sensation that is Margaret Simon.

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Bienvenidos Arizona Street Art Endures in D.C.

Give credit to street artist Yote, whose Bienvenidos Campaign — stickers, signs and paintings of the Spanish word for “welcome” superimposed over Arizona’s state flag — keeps popping up years after he started it.

The artist developed Bienvenidos in 2010, during the height of the debate over Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown law. It offered a counter-narrative to the heated anti-immigrant rhetoric of the day as it popped up amid election-season signage.

Street artist Yote developed the Bienvenidos Campaign in 2010. (Jason Dick/CQ Roll Call)

And it appears to have made its way to Washington, D.C., as evidenced by this sticker’s placement on a newspaper box on the National Mall.

Yote’s Bienvenidos street art project keeps popping up, years after he started it. (Jason Dick/CQ Roll Call)

The Most Uncomfortable Thing You’ll Read Today

The Western Representation Political Action Committee has some pretty passionate beliefs about gun control.

A fundraising email sent out Tuesday morning with the subject line “Criminals Love Gun Control” is essentially a repurposed blog post from earlier in the week. The post was written by “Admin,” though the official fundraising email was signed by Dustin Stockton, WRPAC’s co-founder.

Stockton bolded certain lines throughout the post, and the first bold line of the email is, perhaps, a bit overwrought. The imagery, coupled with the cadence, made us spit out our coffee and feel very uncomfortable for several minutes.

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Meet the Next Generation of Flight Delayers

Forget the furloughed air traffic controllers everyone on Capitol Hill can’t stop yakking about. Check out who the airlines have had to dispatch to the front lines:

(Courtesy Rep. Janice Hahn)

We kid!

These ticket takers-in-training are actually the apples of the eye of California Democrat — and proud grandmother — Janice Hahn, who tweeted out the girls’ crash course in commercial travel during Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day.

Confidence is high that travelers in the immediate vicinity should be able to score an upgrade to first class by slipping these two any leftover Easter candy.