Lawmakers better muster some bipartisan Nattitude. (Toni L. Sandys - Post) Ask old-timers why Congress is so divisive these days, and many will say it’s because lawmakers of opposing parties rarely hang out and socialize together like they did in days of yore.

Harkening back to an earlier era, members of Congress are planning a bipartisan evening at Nationals Park, where on June 5, they’ll leave politics aside and take in a game between the New York Mets and the Nats.

While we can’t guarantee that there won’t be some friction between, say, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and fanatic Mets boosters like Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the event’s fare is more likely to include hot dogs and beer than the usual political bickering.

Reps. David McKinley (R-W. Va) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) are organizing the event, which will include a reception before the game (at which the only rule is “no talking about work”), the Capitol Police Honor Guard presenting the flag, and a performance of the national anthem by the Congressional Chorus.

Scott Mulhauser, a veteran Senate staffer and former aide to Vice President Biden, is the new chief of staff at the Export-Import Bank.

Mulhauser was a senior advisor to the Presidential Inaugural Committee was worked for the presidential re-election campaign as Biden’s deputy chief of staff. Before that, he spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill, including a stint at the Senate Finance Committee.

“Scott has delivered results in senior roles across Washington,” Bank President Fred Hochberg said in a statement. “I am thrilled he is joining us to help the Bank with its mission to create U.S. jobs through exports.”

Penny Pritzker got a surprisingly warm welcome. (J. Scott Applewhite - AP) And here we thought Senate Republicans were sharpening their knives for Penny Pritzker, the billionaire hotel and real-estate magnate who President Obama nominated to be his Commerce Secretary. But during her first Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday, they seemed to have donned kid gloves just for the occasion.

The session at the Senate Commerce Committee was downright nice, with so many “I-look-forward-to-working-with-you”s and the like that you’d swear that they, well, looked forward to working with her.

Sure, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) pressed her about a touchy topic for her, the failure in the 1990s of Superior Bank, which her family co-owned.

But for the most part, it was a quite affable affair.

Most folks think being “up to your neck in alligators” is not a good thing. But a super PAC supporting Sen. David Vitter ( R-La.) thinks it’s an excellent fun time, worth $5,000 a person.

Yes, it’s a “Louisiana Bayou Weekend” alligator hunt and “airboat swamp tour” Sept. 5-7, our invitation says, “with special guest David Vitter.”

What would Franz Kafka make of the IRS? (Katherine Frey - WASHINGTON POST) Our pals at the Fix have likened the scandal surrounding the IRS to “The Simpsons,” and its smart-alek 10-year-old protagonist, Bart Simpson.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had a much higher-brow comparison to make on Thursday. The Kentucky Republican said the embattled agency’s inner workings were the stuff of Franz Kafka’s novels.

Kafka, as lit buffs know, is famous for portrayals of inflexible, nightmarish bureaucracies. In fact, the word “Kafkaesque” is often used to describe something that’s needlessly complex and labyrinthine.

And so, the Loop’s quote of the week: “This is an agency that’s basically a euphemism for mind-numbing bureaucracy — The kind of place where you’d assume nobody does much of anything without signatures and counter-signatures from section chiefs, and sub-section chiefs, and deputy office heads, and secondary assistant deputy sub-associate directors,” McConnell said during a speech on the Senate floor. “Sort of like a Kafka novel without the laughs.”