Biggest news of the day?   The House of Representatives voted to oust Keven McCarthy as Speaker of the House, 216-210 .  Never happened before in our history.   So what's next? At the beginning of his speakership, McCarthy filed into the record (kept secret) a list of names in priority order to the House Clerk to act in the case of his vacancy.   The person highest on the list shall act as Speaker pro tempore.   The first task will presumably be to vote on a permanent speaker.  But not necessarily.  There is no legal time frame for anything. Could McCarthy run again? Sure. Probably won't win a normal vote, so could well work out a deal with Democrats. But he has said  enough , and won't run again. Could Democrat Hakeem Jeffries run? Sure. But he won't get that position. Could Matt Gaetz become the next speaker.  Nope. Why?  Republicans are not idiotic as Gaetz. The second big newsworthy item is that no one won the Pow...

  First some newsworthy items: New COVID-19 cases are shifting to the Orient.  Yesterday (new cases/million population): #1   South Korea  139,615 (2722) #2  Russia  106,920 (732) #3  Germany  95,396 (1136) #4  Vietnam  94,385  (955) #5  Turkey  64,275 (747) #6  Japan  63,703 (506) #7  USA  32,918 (99) California  5,231 (132) New York  1,999 (103) Idaho 2,526 (1403) Hawaii 142 (101) World  1,110,611 (141) Singapore  13,544 (2257) Bahrain  2577 (1431)...a small island country in the Persian Gulf Estonia  2278 (1752) Luxembourg  1274 (1990) French Polynesia (3986) Brunei  (9223)...a small country on Borneo in the South China Sea Gazing at those numbers, the USA has a new cases/million rate only 1% of Brunei.  Not only did we survive the pandemic, but if fully vaccinated and boosted, much safer than from the seasonal flu.  Further, this  Omicron s...