Democrats on the House Oversight Committee complained loudly about the Republican majority’s refusal to allow minority witnesses at a hearing on the Administration’s birth control access rules. The panel, which is happening live right now, was announced by Chairman Darrell Issa with the participation of nine panelists, all of whom oppose the new rules, including a member of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Rep. Barney Frank plans to retire, which means by next year, both lead co-sponsors of Dodd-Frank will be out of Congress, having secured a legacy of sorts through attaching their names to that legislation. So who might replace Frank as ranking member or Chair of the House Financial Services Committee?

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.

Last night, it appeared that Elijah Cummings would attempt to leapfrog seniority and obtain the ranking membership of the House Oversight Committee with the backing of outgoing ranking member Ed Towns. However, Towns reversed course last night, saying in a statement, “I support Carolyn Maloney to become Ranking Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She is next in line on the Committee, she has the seniority and competence to serve the Caucus well.”

Ed Towns will give up his post as the Democratic ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, setting up a potential battle for that spot, opposite Darrell Issa, who has promised vigorous and probably endless oversight of the Obama Administration.

I hate to disrupt the “GOP goes extreme” narrative the media has latched onto (hampered somewhat by the fact that Christine O’Donnell was the nominee for US Senate for Delaware, um, two years ago), but that wasn’t the only story coming out of last night’s end to the primary schedule. In fact, we saw a fair number of progressive candidates, a mix of incumbents and challengers, knock off opponents running to their right.

There is some really twisted logic behind the notion that Obama would be vulnerable in 2012 if the economy’s bad, and yet the country would look to a creature of Wall Street like Mike Bloomberg for salvation. Of course, it’s equally twisted that the tea parties exploded in response to the bank bailouts, and yet Bain Capital billionaire Mitt Romney is their favorite for 2012. Maybe that gave them hope.

Today effectively marks the end of the primary election season and the true beginning of the general elections. It’s not only one of the last primary days but one of the biggest, including Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. [Ed. note: Jon will be liveblogging results all night. Delaware polls close at 8pm EDT, with a number of others closing at 9. Look for results and reaction at FDL's Elections page.]

Seriously? This is the person Zuckerman thinks should be representing New York as a member of Congress?

I’m sure someone at the Daily News must know that fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon and one was from Egypt. That leaves exactly “zero” from Afghanistan who “attacked us.”