January 6 rolls around again

Every time I go online, I see that another attempt has been made to elect the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives … but no candidate has obtained enough votes.

Wikipedia says:

It is the 128th U.S. speaker election since the office was created in 1789. … Of the fourteen prior speaker elections that took more than one ballot, thirteen occurred before the American Civil War. The 68th Congress in 1923 [one hundred years ago] was the last time it took more than one ballot to elect a speaker, and the 36th Congress in 1859 was the last time it took more than nine ballots to elect a speaker. The record number is 133 ballots during the 34th Congress in 1855.

As of this writing, there’ve been thirteen inconclusive ballots. Rep. McCarthy inches closer to victory, but he hasn’t won yet. He needs to bring four of his party’s holdouts over to his side.

I am noting this because the newswriters deem it significant, though I myself am not sure that it is, except for this obvious point, that the Republicans aren’t a big, happy family.

My most vocal Republican-leaning friend, a longtime Trump supporter, has switched his allegiance to DeSantis for the next presidential contest. I wish I lived in Florida, he says. He lives in South Carolina (a hotbed of liberalism, apparently). He’s sworn never to vote for Sen. Graham again. That Graham supported the omnibus bill was the last straw.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Poor Samuel was weeping in his room just now because Spotify was playing this song in my room.

Some music affects him very strongly.