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Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast. This is our first episode of 2023.

Slightly different publishing and recording schedule this week than most weeks because of my co-hosts'

vacation slash travel schedule. We wanted to be both in our home bases to provide you with the

best quality podcast content. Normally we record and publish on Wednesdays, so they were doing on

Fridays, and we are now, you know, Tuesday was supposed to be, well, losing track now.

Yeah, Tuesday, the third was supposed to be, you know, the ritual beginning of the new Congress.

They managed to get it underway on the Senate side, but on the House side, as you know, it's what the

fourth day of Groundhog Day today. We've had three days of successive votes to elect a speaker of the House.

I believe they got to the 11th vote yesterday, so we're 11 in, and I think they're going to actually

gavel in while we are recording this episode. Right now it's 1141 on Friday morning as we record.

And all signs are that this will not only not be resolved today, but it may go into the weekend or go

into next week. You know, one of the things that this is one of those cases where, you know, after a few days

of screwing around, you start getting the collision between constitutional responsibilities.

And the fact that these members of Congress don't want to want to go home.

They want to go back to their districts. They want to, you know, do what they do on weekends.

And there are a few cases where people have like legitimate legitimate family things or health care related things

that they need to go back to their district. Now I don't know this has been brought up a few times by various reporters.

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