"Progress" without progress.

The clown show continues.

BIG news on Damar Hamlin. His doctors say he appears "neurologically intact."

That is the key. Everything else can likely heal.

Dan Bishop, who yesterday suggested they were near a deal, just nominated Donalds again.

What a clown show.

Kevin is an epic twerp. Meanwhile he doesn't appear to have the votes yet at all.

What a pathetic loser. Handing his balls to the fringe of the fringe would NOT make this a productive Congress or get future problems out of the way. It would telegraph that he's unable to stand up to them.

Historical fact: Coolidge was *not* the extreme reactionary of legend. He was actually a quite progressive governor, who believed most progressive action should occur on the state level. He also supported a child labor amendment and anti-lynching legislation.

Even the famous "business of America is business" is misquoted and distorted - his point was actually that Americans put idealism ahead of profit.

Kevin's desperate groveling to the ultra-maggots hasn't closed the deal yet. And if it does work, he'll have preemptively destroyed his own power.

That seems about right. A toss-up between him eking out a "win" as an emasculated puppet of the Gaetz-Boebert faction, or him failing outright.

Seeing WAY too many conspiracy theories that Rs removed the metal detectors outside the House chamber as part of a plot for another Jan 6.

These were right outside the House chamber. Had they been there on Jan 6, they would have made zero difference - security had already been overwhelmed well before that point.

Rs sulked and sobbed about the detectors because they couldn't pack heat on the floor and feel "big." That's what this was all about.

Y'know, this is entirely plausible.

Excellent point from the excellent Claire McCaskill.

It's very interesting that this was going on while the McCarthy idiocy circled the drain in the House. Mitch, a power-hungry conniver for the ages but a pragmatist when he thinks it serves his interests, preferred to be off doing photo-ops with Biden.

Rs could easily end this lunatic hostage situation in the House by reaching out to Ds for a compromise. But they'd rather hand absolute power over the party to the very fringe that cost them most key midterm races.

And there you have the R party in a nutshell: double down on what doesn't work because your base demands it - the same base that can't win elections without the swing voters they keep alienating.

So now Kevin is basically promising to give away his power and future political survival to the party fringe if they'll just let him play-act Speaker and cradle the gavel.

This is just beyond belief. Kevin is willing to tell the fringe that they can rule him totally, on this and thus on anything... just so he can say he won and play-act as Speaker with no real power.

And it still might not even be enough.

Lord, this is so pathetic.

From Manu Raju: "Kevin McCarthy’s team has made an offer to his opponents — filled with “substantive” rules changes and other process issues they have demanded, per source.

But even if they accept it, it’s not enough to get to 218 votes, the source acknowledges. Others have made other demands."

Kevin is trying to buy the Taliban20 with promises to grovel to MAGA. Some of the 20 are making noises about a deal.

It's not clear enough of the 20 will go along.

But imagine a speaker getting in that way after 6 failed ballots. Especially if he has to get "present" votes to lower the threshold?

He'd be the most feeble, pathetic Speaker in modern history.

So *some* of the Taliban20 are making noises that they'll back Kevin in exchange for various groveling concessions to MAGA lunacy (like vowing never to work against maggots in open primaries).

That *may* allow a humiliated, weakened McCarthy to make it through.

Or it could be that enough of the 20 won't bend that a "deal" would fail anyway.

It's a shitshow no matter how it ends.

So I've now seen reporters saying that there's been a break towards McCarthy, that a consensus is forming around Scalise, that McCarthy will move to change the rules, and that nothing has changed at all.

Very helpful.