The very best possible outcome would be some sort of accounting of the 'full cost' of developing new drugs (including funding the failures) as a new blockbuster comes online and paying what will look like exorbitant prices to recoup the costs of the new drug and the failed drugs, plus fund future R&D plus profits...
It becomes a sort of regulated industry, like, say, Power Companies. BUT, we have a lot of real world data on the gaps that come with regulated industries and how they perform. And what incentives they have to cut corners to keep their dividends when regulators say no.
The worst would be Single Payer wins a windfall ... once.
The other worst is Pharma wins more windfalls because there's no real constituency for no access to blockbusters and Pharma wins the media war over *not* releasing the drug at the price Single Payer hopes to pay. I mean, not necessarily foot fungus meds... but the super-expensive new Cancer treatments? Yeah, the Public is not going to be price sensitive here.
Heh, I broke my first paladin in the beginner area and 1) Didn't know you could break your paladin, 2) have no idea what dialogue choice I picked to break him ... then I found out that apparently the cool way to play a paladin is to break him.
As you know, I just can't even with the whole idea of game/fantasy 'stories' ... my defense mechanism is to ignore the bad story telling and chase the loot; forcing me to pick a team is usually when I quit.
I suppose it is 'possible' that a story in BG3 is AMAZING, but from my particular perspective? I doubt it very much. These folks aren't writing stories for me and my folk... so I'm just here for the game breaking loot.
In typical Marchmaine fashion, I ignored all the dialogue and made custom NPC's for my party. Then all I had to do was deal with the occasional Camp/Rest pre-programmed interruption -- which I didn't really read. As far as I can tell, everybody wants a piece of me in every possible way, and nobody in the party is getting what they want. I dunno, something something about Gale maybe exploding or something.
Of course, I never 'finished' the game; and one time I ignored Lae’zel's fake goddess so hard she killed the entire party from afar, ending the game. Which was something I didn't think could happen in today's bumper-car games. I mean, I just went back to the previous save (had to fight the long fight again, sigh) and picked a different dialogue choice... so not dead, dead. But still.
We recently signed a letter over a minor local kerfuffle and were subsequently harassed by an anonymous group who wouldn't publish their names for, and I quote, fear of being harassed. Ironical.
Yeah, I think that's true, but I'd just call that sticking with the concept. I'd say there's a second component which is getting your character archetypes lined-up and then just running the playbook over and over. If there's a 'trick' to the whole middlebrow endeavor it's making up a new plot that provides enough lift for the concept and characters to do what they need to do.
My haut criticism of RED 2 v. MBFGW 2 is that RED 2 was much better... MBFGW fell into the trap of thinking we 'cared' about personal growth... we don't. We want the jungian archetypes turned up to 11.
I haven't seen MBFGW 3 yet, but I'm slightly hopeful that 'rearranging' the archetypes with a better plot might work. Maybe?
p.s. As a Greek, I liked #1 and felt it held back too much ... Satire has to Love the thing it's satirizing and #1 showed love in a way that #2 did not. In #1 the subversive elements were checked by the love, so it worked.
p.p.s. Don't get me started on the Pitch Perfect cinematic universe...
Wes Anderson Narrator: Even with six weeks of rations, a utility knife, three yards of corded nylon rope, and a Heritage White Paper, his plan could totally be ruled out.
West Wing Narrator: The Pendleton, Hatch and Reform Acts totally rule out this plan; but what if he appoints bad people and they use the system to hire people legally to pursue policies that we disagree with? Well, that cannot be ruled out and must be classified as an existential threat over the next 30-40 years depending on actuarial tables.
I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate North's comment; it's plausible under a whole set of meta-assumptions that I don't think pertain. But not something I'd gainsay other than to say that.
I don't think it's 'fixable' it is perhaps manageable. I think the 'fixable' notion is a polling notion, like, how can we change the narrative around his age.
The 'manageable' problem is the fact that he has to run for President and he's lost more than a few steps... managing his public activities includes 'Joe being Joe' moments that he's good at and minimizing Joe being grilled on facts and details without a long runway and limited scope. The occasional 'set-piece' with prep and choreography (as long as it doesn't overstep a'la the Red Speech) is also something a good team can manage - especially with the Office of the President as both the throttle and stage.
The 'issue' if there is one is that you can Manage Joe to the best of your ability, but Joe is Joe and he's over 80 and his decline is evident. He makes mistakes in public owing to his age, and that's something that increases with, well, age; and Joe being Joe also includes Joe being willing to go headlong into his weaknesses as well as his strengths. That's what they are trying to manage, but it isn't fixable... or, another way to put it is that it will be 'fixed' up until the moment it isn't managed.
This is the driver behind all the VP talk... a weak VP makes 'managing' the age problem a tighter rope to walk.
That makes sense about the schools; now I don't feel as bad about spending all those extra $$ on the certification.
Interesting tid-bit on our instructor, he's ex-Marine, ex-Secret Service who used to teach the advanced driving courses ... but mum's the word on whether that also included The Beast. That's the fun part of being in the Valley outside of DC, half the crusty old people you meet are probably former spooks telling you they used to sell Xerox copiers abroad.
At some point I think the # of hours is more of a delaying tactic that probably would be better served by just raising the driving age. But yeah, we basically put ourselves into the position of having to drive to all the homeschool stuff that ordinarily the 3rd driver would handle or smooth over.
For us, the heavy lifting is mostly in the start-up phase of learning how to control the vehicle, then how to control the vehicle and think ahead at the same time. After that the hours rack-up organically as they drive us to the things we'd normally drive them to. I'm not sure hours 25 thru 40 did much; or did anything more that saying 65 or 85 or 95 hours would be better.
My daughter insisted on learning how to drive with the pick-up truck because, well, that's just how she is. So lot's of things were like 1.18x harder to learn. Of course now I can have her pick-up straw, hay and feed... so while she thinks its a cooler look, I'm the ultimate beneficiary.
Not to sound snarky, but I honesty don't think 'capable of governing' is a voting category.
I mean that seriously. Like 'governing' isn't something the guy/gal you're voting for does, it's what all the other people you aren't voting for prevent.
Today is the last day of our youngest daughter's 7-day Driving exam; not sure if this is common elsewhere, but in Virginia instead of the usual DMV driver test I had to take as a kid, you can sign-up for a certified Instructor to drive with your child for 7-days (2-hrs per day, one driving one observing another kid driving) and on the 7th day you get a driver's license. Very biblical.
Now, this is preceded by 40-hrs of parent/child driving plus the usual 'rules of the road' DMV test; so not like she's just getting behind the wheel for the first time. But still, seems better than the way I had to do it.
I'm guessing this might also be a homeschool thing as we don't have a semester of HS Driver's Ed classes? I assume they still do that in HS?
We kinda messed up the timing of this since the Middle Daughter went of to college in August and she was our 'back-up' driver -- the one who would run to target for the pint of heavy cream we forgot, or who would pick-up the others from friend's houses, and drive themselves to dance, etc. We've had back-ups for almost 10-yrs, and totally forgot what *not* having a 3rd driver is like. It's not good. So, the prospect of another driver outweighs the trepidation of another baby behind the wheel.
Slightly more scarier, as a driver, she gets her first phone. Once again I'm going to attempt to use the provider's 'Parental Service' (which costs extra) to moderate its use. All the previous attempts have not survived an update or two. Maybe the tech is better now. I hope anyway. So I have to give her 'The Talk v.3' not about driving or sex, but about phones.
BLM (Global Network) was always very invested in Intersectional Theory; when I first looked into them prior to their breakout moment with George Floyd it was interesting to me to see it as explicit as it was. The website was modified in (or around) 2020 during the protests to refocus a bit more on their 'core' mission.
Which, by-the-by: "It's Still Defund the Police. 10 years later, our vision hasn’t changed. Defund the police. Invest in our communities. Watch our latest video, released during the week of our movement’s 10 year anniversary." https://blacklivesmatter.com/defund-police/
It was (and is) fundamentally a 'hothouse flower' organization more than anything else.
Yeah, I don't think there's a blueprint; just things that will happen after other things happen. I've looked at and written so many position papers, case-studies and essays about the Middle East since approx. 1987 that my youthful exuberance for the topic is gone. I can honestly say that in a shape-turning sort of way, the problem looks mostly the same despite 40-yrs of events. Will this materially change the shape? Don't know.
Turkey and Greece 'exchanged' populations in 1923 via Treaty. Primarily after Greece attempted to assert irredentist claims on the mainland after WWI and the Ottoman demise (and, it should be noted, in the face of Turkish genocide of Christians esp. Armenians between 1919-1922); famously striking for Ankara and retreating in disorder through Smyrna, the Greek part of which was burned to the ground with the English fleet watching in the harbor.
My Grandmother (15) and her family were among a minority who made it on to a boat as Smyrna burned. The formal exchange happened approximately a year after Smyrna when the Greek 'Liberation/Invasion' was destroyed by Ataturk.
Notably, the Armenians had fewer options by virtue of geography and mis-aligned cultural affinities.
Muslims and the remainder of Christians were 'exchanged' based specifically on Religion, not language or culture. Massive hardships for everyone involved. Was it better in the end? Probably? But it's not entirely a rational policy you invoke outside of the dust settling after war where the alternative to rebuilding in a hostile land is State Mandated self deportation.
Are there lessons learned? A repeatable model? I don't think so, not in the way most people try to use History. Just something to recognize that human affairs contain every sort of attempt at resolving conflicts -- and none ever end-up in the 'dustbin of history'.
We have the opposite problem. We have 7 cats (piu o meno) that all live outside and sometimes like to dash inside then hide under shelves or, heaven forbid, scoot down into the basement where they can hide like WW2 veterans in the jungle.
The Marchmaine tradition is to procure the Advent Tree on Gaudete Sunday and then decorate on Christmas Eve. This sounds very orderly and regular until you realize (by trial and error, usually) that Gaudete Sunday can fall rather close to Christmas such that most of the Civilian Christmassers have long since acquired their tree and the Tree Vendors are deep in their cups wondering how they are going to get rid of the scraggly Charlie Brown trees that are left. At which point I would enter, brimming with Gaudete Sunday Christmas Spirit and suffer the worst possible dried-out needle dropping misshapenly crookebacked stumpy tree you could imagine.
Anyhow, I was kicked-off the Christmas Tree acquisition committee round-about 2013. Fair enough. But, since then the Christmas Tree process has become ever more elaborate and multi-stepped with various stakeholders being added to the decision structure.
I tell you all this so that I might inform you that THIS WEEKEND we have to go to a Christmas Tree Farm to select/reserve our Tree so that on Gaudete Sunday (this year falling a scant week before Christmas) we might bother another soul to cut it down for us. Personally I preferred just grabbing the last tree off the lot.
Oh, and our Pig-guy just dropped off the Primals, so we'll be butchering and making bacon/pancetta this weekend.
It's easy enough for non-citizens to cross borders to pick our strawberries... we've an entire economy built on it. We could make it even easier, if we want, but that's not the costly part.
It's the 'prevent wage theft' part that will make it so the non-citizens aren't exploited for our low-food prices... plus the whole 'underground' payment without benefits and protections that we insist our friends and family get.
Motion to vacate raised by Gaetz. Motion fails. Status quo ante. Gaetz's powerplay slapped down. McCarthy 'forced' to continue his fragile speakership knowing that Jeffries holds cards he's willing to play.
There's no actual legislation at stake. That's a pretty strong play by Jeffries, IMO.
My self critique is: it's a meaningless take if the assumption of an ordinary (if embarrassingly stupid) transition to a new speaker happens in a day or two; and if that's Jeffries calculation, then fair enough. Anything other than that, though, isn't worth the squeeze.
Plus, I genuinely think there's real political value in thwarting idiots like Gaetz as they throw sand in the sandbox.
On “The Weight of Society”
The very best possible outcome would be some sort of accounting of the 'full cost' of developing new drugs (including funding the failures) as a new blockbuster comes online and paying what will look like exorbitant prices to recoup the costs of the new drug and the failed drugs, plus fund future R&D plus profits...
It becomes a sort of regulated industry, like, say, Power Companies. BUT, we have a lot of real world data on the gaps that come with regulated industries and how they perform. And what incentives they have to cut corners to keep their dividends when regulators say no.
The worst would be Single Payer wins a windfall ... once.
The other worst is Pharma wins more windfalls because there's no real constituency for no access to blockbusters and Pharma wins the media war over *not* releasing the drug at the price Single Payer hopes to pay. I mean, not necessarily foot fungus meds... but the super-expensive new Cancer treatments? Yeah, the Public is not going to be price sensitive here.
On “Baldur’s Gate III: On Evil Making Things Less Fun”
Heh, I broke my first paladin in the beginner area and 1) Didn't know you could break your paladin, 2) have no idea what dialogue choice I picked to break him ... then I found out that apparently the cool way to play a paladin is to break him.
As you know, I just can't even with the whole idea of game/fantasy 'stories' ... my defense mechanism is to ignore the bad story telling and chase the loot; forcing me to pick a team is usually when I quit.
I suppose it is 'possible' that a story in BG3 is AMAZING, but from my particular perspective? I doubt it very much. These folks aren't writing stories for me and my folk... so I'm just here for the game breaking loot.
"
In typical Marchmaine fashion, I ignored all the dialogue and made custom NPC's for my party. Then all I had to do was deal with the occasional Camp/Rest pre-programmed interruption -- which I didn't really read. As far as I can tell, everybody wants a piece of me in every possible way, and nobody in the party is getting what they want. I dunno, something something about Gale maybe exploding or something.
Of course, I never 'finished' the game; and one time I ignored Lae’zel's fake goddess so hard she killed the entire party from afar, ending the game. Which was something I didn't think could happen in today's bumper-car games. I mean, I just went back to the previous save (had to fight the long fight again, sigh) and picked a different dialogue choice... so not dead, dead. But still.
On “From The HuffPost: More Than 400 Capitol Hill Staffers Call For Cease-Fire In Gaza”
We recently signed a letter over a minor local kerfuffle and were subsequently harassed by an anonymous group who wouldn't publish their names for, and I quote, fear of being harassed. Ironical.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/16/2023”
"The toy in the picture is a tool often used by autistic people as a way to communicate feelings."
It would seem so.
On “The Month in Theaters September 2023”
Yeah, I think that's true, but I'd just call that sticking with the concept. I'd say there's a second component which is getting your character archetypes lined-up and then just running the playbook over and over. If there's a 'trick' to the whole middlebrow endeavor it's making up a new plot that provides enough lift for the concept and characters to do what they need to do.
My haut criticism of RED 2 v. MBFGW 2 is that RED 2 was much better... MBFGW fell into the trap of thinking we 'cared' about personal growth... we don't. We want the jungian archetypes turned up to 11.
I haven't seen MBFGW 3 yet, but I'm slightly hopeful that 'rearranging' the archetypes with a better plot might work. Maybe?
p.s. As a Greek, I liked #1 and felt it held back too much ... Satire has to Love the thing it's satirizing and #1 showed love in a way that #2 did not. In #1 the subversive elements were checked by the love, so it worked.
p.p.s. Don't get me started on the Pitch Perfect cinematic universe...
"
Pretty in Pink (1986) gave them a false sense of how easy it was going to be...
Not that it's that good of a sound track, but if you're going for an 80s outsider vibe that also has to be Normie-proof... well, that's what you get.
"
for 1987, the Lost Boys soundtrack is a profound, 'meh' from me.
I'm a RED supporter vs. Expendables... if we're going to have an ensemble cast of aging stars, I prefer camp.
On “An Anxious Man’s Advice to Dems: Don’t Psych Yourself Out”
Well I included the West Wing voice.
"
"While this cannot be totally ruled out it"
Narrator: This can totally be ruled out.
Wes Anderson Narrator: Even with six weeks of rations, a utility knife, three yards of corded nylon rope, and a Heritage White Paper, his plan could totally be ruled out.
West Wing Narrator: The Pendleton, Hatch and Reform Acts totally rule out this plan; but what if he appoints bad people and they use the system to hire people legally to pursue policies that we disagree with? Well, that cannot be ruled out and must be classified as an existential threat over the next 30-40 years depending on actuarial tables.
"
I'm not ready to seriously game out Kamala v. Trump. Ensconced behind Biden is one thing; anything else? No thank you.
I get people saying it's dumb to think Harris will be dumped right up until you think about what happens if Harris has to carry the ticket.
"
Yes, I get how Biden wins.
What I also get is how Biden loses.
On “Auribus Teneo Lupum: Holding a Wolf by its Ears”
I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate North's comment; it's plausible under a whole set of meta-assumptions that I don't think pertain. But not something I'd gainsay other than to say that.
On “An Anxious Man’s Advice to Dems: Don’t Psych Yourself Out”
"Biden’s age problem IS fixable."
I don't think it's 'fixable' it is perhaps manageable. I think the 'fixable' notion is a polling notion, like, how can we change the narrative around his age.
The 'manageable' problem is the fact that he has to run for President and he's lost more than a few steps... managing his public activities includes 'Joe being Joe' moments that he's good at and minimizing Joe being grilled on facts and details without a long runway and limited scope. The occasional 'set-piece' with prep and choreography (as long as it doesn't overstep a'la the Red Speech) is also something a good team can manage - especially with the Office of the President as both the throttle and stage.
The 'issue' if there is one is that you can Manage Joe to the best of your ability, but Joe is Joe and he's over 80 and his decline is evident. He makes mistakes in public owing to his age, and that's something that increases with, well, age; and Joe being Joe also includes Joe being willing to go headlong into his weaknesses as well as his strengths. That's what they are trying to manage, but it isn't fixable... or, another way to put it is that it will be 'fixed' up until the moment it isn't managed.
This is the driver behind all the VP talk... a weak VP makes 'managing' the age problem a tighter rope to walk.
On “Weekend Plans Post: We Were Going To Do That Anyway”
That makes sense about the schools; now I don't feel as bad about spending all those extra $$ on the certification.
Interesting tid-bit on our instructor, he's ex-Marine, ex-Secret Service who used to teach the advanced driving courses ... but mum's the word on whether that also included The Beast. That's the fun part of being in the Valley outside of DC, half the crusty old people you meet are probably former spooks telling you they used to sell Xerox copiers abroad.
"
At some point I think the # of hours is more of a delaying tactic that probably would be better served by just raising the driving age. But yeah, we basically put ourselves into the position of having to drive to all the homeschool stuff that ordinarily the 3rd driver would handle or smooth over.
For us, the heavy lifting is mostly in the start-up phase of learning how to control the vehicle, then how to control the vehicle and think ahead at the same time. After that the hours rack-up organically as they drive us to the things we'd normally drive them to. I'm not sure hours 25 thru 40 did much; or did anything more that saying 65 or 85 or 95 hours would be better.
My daughter insisted on learning how to drive with the pick-up truck because, well, that's just how she is. So lot's of things were like 1.18x harder to learn. Of course now I can have her pick-up straw, hay and feed... so while she thinks its a cooler look, I'm the ultimate beneficiary.
On “Speaker Vacancy Stymies House Work”
Not to sound snarky, but I honesty don't think 'capable of governing' is a voting category.
I mean that seriously. Like 'governing' isn't something the guy/gal you're voting for does, it's what all the other people you aren't voting for prevent.
On “Weekend Plans Post: We Were Going To Do That Anyway”
Today is the last day of our youngest daughter's 7-day Driving exam; not sure if this is common elsewhere, but in Virginia instead of the usual DMV driver test I had to take as a kid, you can sign-up for a certified Instructor to drive with your child for 7-days (2-hrs per day, one driving one observing another kid driving) and on the 7th day you get a driver's license. Very biblical.
Now, this is preceded by 40-hrs of parent/child driving plus the usual 'rules of the road' DMV test; so not like she's just getting behind the wheel for the first time. But still, seems better than the way I had to do it.
I'm guessing this might also be a homeschool thing as we don't have a semester of HS Driver's Ed classes? I assume they still do that in HS?
We kinda messed up the timing of this since the Middle Daughter went of to college in August and she was our 'back-up' driver -- the one who would run to target for the pint of heavy cream we forgot, or who would pick-up the others from friend's houses, and drive themselves to dance, etc. We've had back-ups for almost 10-yrs, and totally forgot what *not* having a 3rd driver is like. It's not good. So, the prospect of another driver outweighs the trepidation of another baby behind the wheel.
Slightly more scarier, as a driver, she gets her first phone. Once again I'm going to attempt to use the provider's 'Parental Service' (which costs extra) to moderate its use. All the previous attempts have not survived an update or two. Maybe the tech is better now. I hope anyway. So I have to give her 'The Talk v.3' not about driving or sex, but about phones.
On “From CNN: Israel says it is ‘at war’ after Hamas surprise attack”
BLM (Global Network) was always very invested in Intersectional Theory; when I first looked into them prior to their breakout moment with George Floyd it was interesting to me to see it as explicit as it was. The website was modified in (or around) 2020 during the protests to refocus a bit more on their 'core' mission.
Which, by-the-by: "It's Still Defund the Police. 10 years later, our vision hasn’t changed. Defund the police. Invest in our communities. Watch our latest video, released during the week of our movement’s 10 year anniversary." https://blacklivesmatter.com/defund-police/
It was (and is) fundamentally a 'hothouse flower' organization more than anything else.
"
Yeah, I don't think there's a blueprint; just things that will happen after other things happen. I've looked at and written so many position papers, case-studies and essays about the Middle East since approx. 1987 that my youthful exuberance for the topic is gone. I can honestly say that in a shape-turning sort of way, the problem looks mostly the same despite 40-yrs of events. Will this materially change the shape? Don't know.
"
Turkey and Greece 'exchanged' populations in 1923 via Treaty. Primarily after Greece attempted to assert irredentist claims on the mainland after WWI and the Ottoman demise (and, it should be noted, in the face of Turkish genocide of Christians esp. Armenians between 1919-1922); famously striking for Ankara and retreating in disorder through Smyrna, the Greek part of which was burned to the ground with the English fleet watching in the harbor.
My Grandmother (15) and her family were among a minority who made it on to a boat as Smyrna burned. The formal exchange happened approximately a year after Smyrna when the Greek 'Liberation/Invasion' was destroyed by Ataturk.
Notably, the Armenians had fewer options by virtue of geography and mis-aligned cultural affinities.
Muslims and the remainder of Christians were 'exchanged' based specifically on Religion, not language or culture. Massive hardships for everyone involved. Was it better in the end? Probably? But it's not entirely a rational policy you invoke outside of the dust settling after war where the alternative to rebuilding in a hostile land is State Mandated self deportation.
Are there lessons learned? A repeatable model? I don't think so, not in the way most people try to use History. Just something to recognize that human affairs contain every sort of attempt at resolving conflicts -- and none ever end-up in the 'dustbin of history'.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Crossing the Finish Line”
We have the opposite problem. We have 7 cats (piu o meno) that all live outside and sometimes like to dash inside then hide under shelves or, heaven forbid, scoot down into the basement where they can hide like WW2 veterans in the jungle.
The Marchmaine tradition is to procure the Advent Tree on Gaudete Sunday and then decorate on Christmas Eve. This sounds very orderly and regular until you realize (by trial and error, usually) that Gaudete Sunday can fall rather close to Christmas such that most of the Civilian Christmassers have long since acquired their tree and the Tree Vendors are deep in their cups wondering how they are going to get rid of the scraggly Charlie Brown trees that are left. At which point I would enter, brimming with Gaudete Sunday Christmas Spirit and suffer the worst possible dried-out needle dropping misshapenly crookebacked stumpy tree you could imagine.
Anyhow, I was kicked-off the Christmas Tree acquisition committee round-about 2013. Fair enough. But, since then the Christmas Tree process has become ever more elaborate and multi-stepped with various stakeholders being added to the decision structure.
I tell you all this so that I might inform you that THIS WEEKEND we have to go to a Christmas Tree Farm to select/reserve our Tree so that on Gaudete Sunday (this year falling a scant week before Christmas) we might bother another soul to cut it down for us. Personally I preferred just grabbing the last tree off the lot.
Oh, and our Pig-guy just dropped off the Primals, so we'll be butchering and making bacon/pancetta this weekend.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/2/2023”
It's easy enough for non-citizens to cross borders to pick our strawberries... we've an entire economy built on it. We could make it even easier, if we want, but that's not the costly part.
It's the 'prevent wage theft' part that will make it so the non-citizens aren't exploited for our low-food prices... plus the whole 'underground' payment without benefits and protections that we insist our friends and family get.
On “Kevin McCarthy Ousted As Speaker of the House”
Jeffries should want moving parts... if at some point the Red Caucus ceases to exist through Blue movement... then that's good for Team Blue.
Might even beg just the question you ask, why not Speaker Jeffries picking up stragglers/wounded in a Team Red civil war.
"
What deal?
Motion to vacate raised by Gaetz. Motion fails. Status quo ante. Gaetz's powerplay slapped down. McCarthy 'forced' to continue his fragile speakership knowing that Jeffries holds cards he's willing to play.
There's no actual legislation at stake. That's a pretty strong play by Jeffries, IMO.
My self critique is: it's a meaningless take if the assumption of an ordinary (if embarrassingly stupid) transition to a new speaker happens in a day or two; and if that's Jeffries calculation, then fair enough. Anything other than that, though, isn't worth the squeeze.
Plus, I genuinely think there's real political value in thwarting idiots like Gaetz as they throw sand in the sandbox.