There’s much discussion of would-be House Speaker and 10-time failure Kevin McCarthy reaching a deal with is opposition—not to actually win, mind you, but to lose by less. Also to get some people to vote “present.” They’ve got to be careful there, because of the planned absences among Republicans (as many as three). It could end in the inadvertent election of the guy who’s won the popular vote 10 times now, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 5, 2023 · 9:20:25 PM +00:00

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Mark Sumner

Honestly, it’s raining steel on Ukraine today — in a good way. UK now suggesting that it may send tanks to Ukraine, though whether that means challengers are incoming or whether the UK is going to send more tanks around NATO to free up additional T-72s, we don’t know.

If anyone is having a rough start to the new year, I’m willing to bet it’s Rep.-elect George Santos. The openly gay MAGA Republican is swimming in controversy, and (somehow) it’s not about being just a Trump supporter, or a gay Republican, or even his defeat of an openly gay Democrat in New York’s 3rd District race, which includes parts of Long Island and Queens.

In an entirely unsuccessful effort to persuade Kevin McCarthy’s intra-party enemies to lay down arms, two of the biggest Republican super PACs announced a bizarre agreement on Wednesday evening.

The Republican Party is in disarray. It isn’t an ideological battle going on as the leadership old and new have been on the same page for some time about not having any policy ideas. The main difference between what is called the “Freedom Caucus” and yesteryear’s establishment Republican Party leadership is that the Freedom Caucus has forced all conservatives to give up the false pretense that they ever had any policy ideas to begin with.

The House is coming back in to resume voting for the speaker’s job. Or not. It’s not entirely clear right now if they are ready to keep voting or if Kevin McCarthy is done groveling to the maniacs. He gave in on one thing in the break they took this after: his Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund has agreed to the Club for Growth’s demand that it stop getting involved in safe open-seat primaries.

UPDATE: Wednesday, Jan 4, 2023 · 7:51:24 PM +00:00

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Mark Sumner

Nice, the first T-90S loss. The T-90S is the export version of the T-90A without Shtora-1 (the eyes), but with additional Kontakt-5 reactive armour. https://t.co/iiqMsZMlmZ pic.twitter.

As the House of Representatives reconvened today, excited and hopeful that a new round of balloting would get Rep. Kevin McCarthy his gavel. But it was not to be. Another round of voting closed without meeting the threshold required to elect a speaker. The only winners thus far are Democrats, who look like a formidable force together, and C-SPAN ratings.

After a never-ending string of humiliating votes for speaker that have failed to yield anything other than severe embarrassment for Kevin McCarthy, it’s worth asking what would happen if House Republicans never manage to settle on a leader. My answer: It would be good for the country.

Right now, we don’t actually need a House of Representatives—at least, not one under Republican control.

“What was expected to be a day of triumph for House Republicans coming into the majority turned into chaos,” says Wednesday’s AP explainer, and it’s not immediately clear whether the nation’s political press was genuinely caught off guard by the current Republican shitshow or are just pretending at it.