Time is running out but there is enough time—but like barely though—to fill you in on what you need to know on a need-to-know basis: The House Republicans have formed a committee. It is called the “GOP ACORN Rapid Response Committee” or “GOPACORNRRCmte,” although it probably has a secret code name. There’s no time to speculate about what the secret code name may be. Its members include the crucial Representatives Patrick McHenry, Darrell Issa, and Michele Bachmann. The aims of said committee include: MORE »

Oh dear: Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has apparently read The POLITICO’s major investigative breaking news scoop about Obama’s “czars.” He thinks Obama should keep Russian oligarchs OUT of our schools and hospitals, and McHenry would like these czars to divulge their responsibilities to Congress. All 30 of them. Or all 44 of them, if there are 44. However many czars there are, that’s how many should be begging Patrick McHenry to not send them back on a trans-Atlantic steamship to the Hermitage whence they came. MORE »

• NOT BLUNT ENOUGH! Ha ha, Republican legislators aren’t even pretending to work on policy anymore — they are running around with megaphones just yelling about 2010, if this quote from Rep. Patrick McHenry is any indication, which it is: “We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010… Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.” Wow, this is simple enough that we won’t even need Politico to tell us what it means! (Although they will anyway, in a top five list.) It is interesting, though, that people like Patrick McHenry assume there will be a basic government or social order in 2010. [Greg Sargent]

This week, our omnipresent eyes and ears spotted Brit Hume, Jean Schmidt, Tony Snow, Ron Paul, Elvis Costello, Katie Couric, Patrick McHenry, Hillary Clinton, and Tom DeLay, then wrote about spotting them in emails, which they sent to us. And now all those emails are posted after the jump!

See someone sorta famous in DC? Tell us all about it in an email with the subject line “Wonk’d” or “sightings.”

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Mike Signorile and Pam Spaulding sort of attempt to link the whole Gay Lover’s Quarrel Florida Murder-Suicide creepy David Lynch story to, uh, Patrick McHenry somehow. Why not? We strongly encourage this sort of thing. [Pam's House Blend]

This week, you numbskulls spotted Patrick McHenry, Scooter Libby, Tim Russert, Doc Rivers, Matthew Lesko, Tom Feeney, Dave Chappelle, John Bolton, and Condi Rice skulking around DC (and elsewhere). Your amazing stories, after the jump.

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Paul Bremer and Dennis Kucinich are totally deluded, Patrick McHenry and George Will are likely quaaluded, David Wu and Bradley Whitford are enrapt, and Helen Thomas is trapped — going to the same restaurants she’s been going to since her 60’s, or the 60’s, whichever.

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Boyish Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) tells AP that Congress is “a much more sophisticated junior high school” — we have to assume the Senate contains the upperclassmen. The eighth-graders, says McHenry, are really cool but the Hill also has its share of total losers: “There are the nice guys that everybody likes, the jocks, the geeks, the bullies - they’re all here. It’s a representative democracy.” Oh, and the hazing! Denny Hastert put McHenry “in a playful headlock,” in front of all the other the Republicans, which is embarrassing, but at least he doesn’t get depantsed every lunch time like poor Kucinich. Still, Paddy shouldn’t think that one little headlock means he can hang with the cool kids now. Hell, he hasn’t even been indicted yet. MORE »