Late last night, the House passed their continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of Fiscal Year 2011, which cuts over $60 billion from the discretionary budget over the next seven months, and includes a host of ideological measures. The final vote was 235-189, mostly along party lines, although three Republicans – Jeff Flake, John Campbell and Walter Jones – voted no. Flake and Campbell wanted bigger cuts. Not one Democrat crossed over to vote for the bill.

Cummings has the potential to be a worthy adversary to Darrell Issa. But the way in which the leadership went about this was pretty ham-fisted.

Women members of Congress contribute significantly to the DCCC’s coffers. But they don’t appear to be getting much for their money.

If a majority of Democrats won’t vote for the Obama-GOP tax plan, Speaker Pelosi must not bring it to the floor for a vote. So let’s find out where Democrats stand. We’re organizing an EMERGENCY whip count to call Democratic Members of Congress and find out where they stand on the Obama-GOP tax plan.

Nancy Pelosi dug her heels in last night and told her caucus that the President wants no extension of the Bush tax cuts beyond the $250,000 threshold. She’s also signaled that she’ll put it up for a vote on the suspension calendar, which means Republicans can’t make amendments or the motion to recommit. But it also means she’ll have to get 290 votes in order to pass it, and there’s no way she can bring enough Republicans on board to do that.

So it’s a purely symbolic vote that will fail. But she’s asking members to take it anyway, because she says that’s what the President wants.

Keep in mind that for the most part, Pelosi never brought anything up for a vote in the House unless she knew she would succeed. I assume we have the same dynamic here.

LGBT Americans need support for our goals in both parties — but we don’t need advocates who give in just when victory is at hand. Viewing Patrick Murphy’s actions that way doesn’t require a partisan lens, but it does require removing the rose-colored glasses Jonathan Capehart wears as he types up another screed against people who embarrassed Team Obama.

The independent chief actuary of Social Security says predicts big benefit cuts for the middle class if privatization and indexing are part of Social Security reform.

I hopped on a conference call with Nancy Pelosi a little late today, and didn’t find much to report. She was focused on the election and the choice voters have to face, and didn’t want to hear much about dissension within the Democratic ranks. Someone asked a question about members running away from the health care bill, and she insisted that “the plural of anecdote is not data,” that “at least 200 members are out there boasting the HC bill,” and that everybody is running their own race in their own district, and some issues work in those districts better than others.

But I have to think Pelosi is none too happy about Democratic candidates, receiving money from Democratic campaign sources, touting their intentions to vote against her for Speaker.

I think it’s valuable that Pelosi wouldn’t give a vote of confidence to anyone on the deficit commission but who she appointed, and that she savaged the idea of raising the retirement age or cutting benefits. In the end, that could play a role when the vote-counting begins.