Courtney’s Connecticut Quibble With ‘Lincoln’

Sally Field and Daniel Day-Lewis star in the Spielberg-directed film “Lincoln.” (Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)

Rep. Joe Courtney wants Steven Spielberg to stop besmirching Connecticut’s reputation.

“As a Member of Congress from Connecticut, I was on the edge of my seat during the roll call vote on the ratification of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery,” the Connecticut Democrat wrote to the film director, referencing his viewing of Spielberg’s epic “Lincoln.” Then Courtney lowers the boom:  “But when two or three members of the Nutmeg State’s House delegation voted to uphold slavery, I could not believe my own eyes.”
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Menendez Mocked on Social Media

Sen. Robert Menendez has been aggressively challenging allegations that he engaged in sex tourism during donor-enabled swings through the Dominican Republic, but he has so far shied away from providing many specifics on what did go down during those trips.

Though Menendez has acknowledged that longtime supporter Dr. Salomon Melgen was reimbursed for the flights to the Caribbean, those who doubt the New Jersey Democrat’s honesty have taken their case directly to the Internet.

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Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti to Divorce

Actress, activist and potential Senate candidate Ashley Judd announced Tuesday that she and race-car driver husband Dario Franchitti will divorce. The two tweeted “family forever” to each other after the news of their split broke.

Judd is mulling a bid against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

When we spoke to Judd during the Emily’s List inauguration brunch, she told us just how difficult and serious the process of deciding to run for public office can be.

“When people are considering running, they hedge,” she said. “I get that now.”

Not even her family knows what she will do, but she did tell us how supportive her mother, country singer Naomi Judd, is.

“My husband said … well, I’ll let him speak for himself,” she said. Full story

Reid Dings Daily Caller When Asked About Menendez Prostitution Accusations

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., took shots at the conservative news site The Daily Caller on Tuesday, characterizing reports that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., solicited prostitutes as unreliable.

Reid said you have to “consider the source” of the allegations, referring to The Daily Caller.

The Daily Caller has reported that Menendez frequented prostitutes while in the Dominican Republic on several occasions between 2009 and 2012.

“I always consider the source,” Reid said. “All anyone here has to look at is the source where this comes from. It’s a source that has brought up a lot of non-issues.”

Reid said that reports on Menendez’s sexual activities were “typical” of The Daily Caller. Menendez and his office have said the reports are false.

Menendez is set to take over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from outgoing Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is leaving the Senate to become secretary of State.

The Inauguration Weekend Superlatives

Inauguration weekend was an absolute mind scramble.

Every night became a blur of fabulously attired people cracking politically correct jokes while hovering over embarrassingly overflowing buffet spreads or waiting in line to drain dry the wealth of open bars.

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StartUp RockOn Lupe Fiasco Show Devolves Into Total Fiasco

Hip-hop rabble-rouser Lupe Fiasco kick-pushed himself out of a paying gig Sunday night when he offended his corporate sponsors after what can only be described as a musical protest against the Obama administration at The Hamilton in Washington, D.C.

The event was supposed to be a celebration of startups and innovation. Fiasco took the stage about 11 p.m. and performed “Words I Never Said” for more than 30 minutes before being escorted off stage.

The lyrics he repeated without stopping were:

“I really think the War on Terror is a bunch of bullshit/Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets/How much money does it take to really make a full clip/9/11, building seven, did they really pull it?/Uh, and a bunch of cover ups /Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts/If you think that hurts, then wait, here comes the upper cut/The school was garbage in the first place, that’s on the up and up/Keep you at the bottom and then tease you with the upper crust/You get it, then they move it, so you never keeping up enough/If you turn on the TV, all you see’s a buncha ‘What the f—-?’/Dude is dating so and so, blabbering ’bout such and such/And that ain’t the Jersey Shore, homey, that’s the news/And these same people supposedly telling us the truth/Limbaugh’s a racist, Glenn Beck’s a racist/Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit/That’s why I ain’t vote for him, next one either/I’m part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful/And I believe in the people” Full story

Capitol Hill’s Most Promising Scandal Locations

Capitol Hill has been the home of many a scandal since the early days of the republic. But times and locations change. So HOH put together a short list of some of our favorite places near the Capitol for getting into trouble or spying on others getting into trouble.
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GOP Grills Administration About Menendez Intern Bust

Grassley, above, and other Republican senators have queried Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano twice about Zavaleta’s case. (Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call)

The timing of the arrest of Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, a registered sex offender who got plucked by immigration officials last December while interning for Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., continues to trouble several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Zavaleta was arrested Dec. 6 on a visa violation.

A timeline provided to lawmakers by government whistleblowers suggests Homeland Security Department agents held off on taking Zavaleta out of circulation ahead of the November elections for fear the enforcement action would spark “significant Congressional and media interest.”

Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Orrin G. Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma have queried Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano twice about Zavaleta’s convoluted case, once on Dec. 19 (former Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., lent his support to the opening salvo) and most recently on Jan. 7.

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Breaking Into the Gossip Pages

Dear members of the 113th Congress:

While there are those, including some of your own colleagues, who loathe the government and all things congressional, we here at Heard on the Hill can’t wait to get to know each and every one of you.

We’re genuinely curious about your thoughts about, well, everything. We’re dying to know where you like to unwind after work. And we’re always interested in who you hang with when you think no one’s looking.

If near-anonymity is your goal this session, consider NOT engaging in the following:

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State of the Union Intrudes on Mardi Gras Revelry

Bad news for revelers wanting to cut loose before the beginning of Lent: Speaker John A. Boehner has invited President Barack Obama to deliver his State of the Union address on Feb. 12. That happens to be Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.

“Oh, my,” said one bummed-sounding staffer for a Louisiana House member.

Calls to several offices of Louisiana’s congressional delegation went out. Boehner’s invitation was sent Friday morning and, at least for the offices we called, the ramifications hadn’t sunk in yet. “Not yet,” said a staffer for Democratic Rep. Cedric L. Richmond, who represents New Orleans. Noting that it was kind of a slow Friday, she promised to try to run down a reaction.

Ditto for the office of Democratic Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, whose family hails from the Crescent City.

We’ll update this as we get reaction, but Obama could help spice up his speech and make amends to Pelican State lawmakers if he threw beads from the podium.

Still, there is one silver lining: the Louisiana Society of D.C.’s Washington Mardi Gras 2013 Ball is scheduled for Feb. 2 at the Washington Hilton, so Washingtonians can attend that without having to ditch the SOTU. But even that posed a conflict for New Orleanians because it conflicts with the Super Bowl, which is being held in New Orleans on Feb. 3. That decision was described last year by New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Jonathan Tilove as an “epic scheduling conflict.”

Happy Birthday, Sen. Paul!

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., received an early birthday present from his 19-year-old son, William Hilton Paul, over the weekend.

On Saturday morning, the younger Paul was arrested at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina and charged with underage alcohol consumption, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive after a flight from Lexington, Ky., to Charlotte, N.C., according to media reports. Sen. Paul’s 50th birthday was Monday.
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Ticketmaster’s Inaugural Screwup

Updated: 1:56 p.m. | The presidential inaugural season is upon us.

Cue general anxiety, hysteria about receiving party invitations, getting tickets to balls, venturing out into the cold and on and on and on. The good news: Bars in the District will be serving into the wee hours of the night. The bad news: Ticketmaster screwed up and many people who were hoping to go to official events sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, such as the official ball or parade, are out of luck.

The tickets were for the public, which means that even some PIC staffers couldn’t get tickets to some of the events they have been planning. Full story

Pelosi and the Women of Photoshopping-gate

On the heels of her re-election as House minority leader, California Democrat Nancy Pelosi has already landed herself in a bit of hot water.

It isn’t over a controversial vote or legislative negotiation, though, but rather from an effort to preserve the historical record by, well, kind of making it up. On Thursday, the opening day of the 113th Congress, Pelosi’s staff orchestrated a photo shoot of all the House Democratic women. The photo the office released to the public, however, wasn’t the same photo taken earlier in the day.

What’s being sold as the “official” shot actually constitutes two pictures meshed together: the original group portrait of 58 lawmakers with four late-arrivals photo-edited into the back row to appear they were there the whole time.

Really, the stragglers – Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Corrine Brown, and Reps. Yvette Clarke of New York and Shelia Jackson Lee of Texas – posed together in a separate photograph, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill explained. They arrived for the photo shoot on the Capitol steps just as their colleagues were dispersing.

Here’s the group shot captured by our own CQ Roll Call photographer:

(Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

And here’s the version being distributed by Pelosi’s office:

(via Flickr)

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How to Stay Out of HOH

As loyal readers of this venerable column know, we are blessed with ample material. The trials, tribulations and pratfalls of members of Congress and their staffers provide a seemingly endless supply. Who could forget, for instance, the staffers for Rep. Steven M. Palazzo, R-Miss., who tried to bribe an Annapolis property manager with pecans after trashing her rental property? Good times. Great copy.

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A Busy Police Beat

Violence. Sex. Immigration violations. The HOH crime blotter was chock full on Wednesday, with news affecting members from both sides of the Capitol Dome.

Patrick Moran, the son of Virginia Democratic Rep. James P. Moran, pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, the Washington City Paper reported. The younger Moran and his girlfriend, Kelly Hoffman, started arguing in Columbia Heights bar The Getaway. The police report says Moran was observed grabbing his girlfriend by the back of the head and shoving her face against a metal trash can cage.
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