Heard on the Hill

Gambling oddsmakers are giving former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer little to no chance of going home as King of the Dance in September when he competes on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”

Spicer has 50-1 odds of going the distance, according to website Sportsbetting.ag. For the uninitiated, that means placing a $10 bet on Spicer would get you $500 should he win.

Molly Eastman is not competing in a beauty pageant. “That would very much be the American take on something like this,” she laughed over the phone from the Hart Senate Office Building. 

Eastman is representing Washington, D.C., this weekend in Ireland’s Rose of Tralee International Festival. Don’t get too caught up in the polished tiaras and evening gowns — “It’s basically a big celebration of Irish heritage,” the staffer for Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo told me.  

DES MOINES, Iowa — If you just cannot wait until Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020, then consider visiting here on Aug. 30, when Minor League Baseball’s Iowa Cubs rebrand themselves for the night as, yes, the Iowa Caucuses. 

“I absolutely love it,” said David Redlawsk, chairman of the political science department at the University of Delaware and author of “Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process.”

Sen. Roy Blunt wants a commemorative coin to honor Negro League Baseball when it celebrates its 100 year anniversary in 2020.

The Missouri Republican talked about his coin push during a tour of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, this week.

It’s that long-awaited time of year when parents get to kick their kids out of the house again. August is back-to-school month, and for some lucky parents, “school” means “college.”

That’s the case for North Carolina Republican Rep. Ted Budd, who’s sending his son Joshua off to Liberty University’s School of Business. The father-son duo tag-teamed the move into Joshua’s dorm room with help (or lack thereof) from an old colleague, former congressman and tea party favorite Dave Brat.

The winding saga of rapper A$AP Rocky’s Swedish detention has finally come to an end, but not before Congress, President Donald Trump, the State Department, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian all had a chance to weigh in.

Swedish authorities said the Harlem rapper and two of his associates are guilty of assault but will face no further jail time after spending almost a month in confinement.

The mother of Rep. Bill Huizenga has died.

“Our family is saddened at the loss of our mother and grandmother, Ann, who went to be with our Lord on Monday,” the Michigan Republican tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Mom was a strong and determined woman who fought through difficulties growing up in Depression-era Flint, MI. She loved music, dance, art, and travel but most of all her family.”

People often say “don’t read the comments,” but in Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’ case, that’s precisely what she wants to do.

The wife of Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings took to Twitter over the weekend in hopes of identifying the man who broke into their West Baltimore home in July.

Sen. Mike Rounds said there’s been a positive development in his wife’s cancer treatment.

“After multiple rounds of chemo treatment, we’re pleased to report that not only has Jean’s tumor shrunk in half, a Computerized Tomography (CT) scan showed no signs of the tumor spreading or metastasizing,” the South Dakota Republican said in a statement. He added that “the chemo is working as intended and Jean continues to handle the treatment well.”

Former New York Rep. John E. Sweeney has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I’m optimistic,” he told the (Albany) Times Union. “I have faced challenges in the past.”

Ben Doessel is “not a huge picture guy,” he told me when I asked if he had any photos with his creative partner — and the other guy behind Ugly Gerry — James Lee.

But pictures of oddly-shaped congressional districts? He has twenty-six of those.

Inside a bare room with concrete walls, they walk toward each other and lock eyes. “Johnny!” one shouts. “Stacy — did it happen?” the other responds.

Neither has any idea what they’re talking about, but that’s OK. This is improv, where uncertainty is a feature, not a bug.

What’s it like traveling the world, selling out stadiums in foreign countries? Touching the hearts of millions and becoming a global icon?

I have no idea, and neither does 25-year-old House Democratic Caucus policy fellow Taylor Swift. He knows far more about education, labor and tax policy than he does about writing a love story.

“The only way any of them will even find West Baltimore is if, I don’t know, Air Force One crash-lands into Monroe Street on its way back to Andrews. It just never connects.”

So says fictional homicide detective Jimmy McNulty to a Democratic campaign strategist in the HBO series “The Wire.” According to the murder cop, it doesn’t matter to his city who the president is, because none of them have ever cared enough to find it on a map.