MedStar Washington Hospital Center just issued another bulletin on the medical condition of Rep. Steve Scalise, and it’s encouraging…

“Congressman Steve Scalise continues to make good progress. He is now listed in fair condition and is beginning an extended period of healing and rehabilitation.”

Scalise had been upgraded over the weekend from critical condition to serious condition, so this upgrade to fair is definitely a winner.

That’s not the only development since the end of last week as Scalise recovers from the serious gunshot wound he suffered in an assassination attempt by the unhinged leftist James Hodgkinson on an Alexandria, Virginia baseball field. As a result of the successful procedures he’s undergone to stop bleeding, repair internal organs and put back together hip and pelvic bones broken by the bullet, doctors have been able to back off of the sedation the congressman was under and he’s now awake and seeing visitors.

So he’s on the mend, and his next challenge, other than fighting off the ever-present prospect of infection wounds such as this one threatens, will be getting back on his feet. Scalise had a broken thigh bone to go with the hip and pelvic injuries, meaning it will be an extensive process for him to regain the ability to walk. Dr. Jack Sava, his lead physician, said he’ll be hospitalized for “weeks” as that process begins. Getting him ambulatory, which Sava did say he expected will happen, will probably take months.

Meanwhile, the FBI says Hodgkinson acted alone – but the Bureau was especially careful in attempting to tamp down the reaction to his acts.

A gunman acted alone when he shot and wounded a top House Republican and four other people on a northern Virginia baseball field, the FBI said Wednesday.

Tim Slater, who leads the criminal division of the FBI’s Washington field office, also said during a news conference that James T. Hodgkinson did not have any ties to terrorism.

…

Hodgkinson, 66, was from Belleville, Illinois, and had volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. For months before the shooting, he had been living out of his van in the Washington area, with more than 200 rounds of ammunition among the belongings he kept in a storage unit, Slater said.

Hodgkinson had a list of six members of Congress on him, Slater said, but there was no indication that he intended to target them. He declined to say whether the people on the list were Republicans or at the baseball practice. Hodgkinson had been in email contact with the two Democratic senators from Illinois, he said.

Both the rifle and handgun Hodgkinson was carrying were purchased legally through federal firearms licenses, the FBI said. The rifle was modified to accept a detachable magazine and the original stock was replaced with a folding stock. Hodgkinson bought the guns in April, after Trump was elected, Slater said.

The list itself is an indication Hodgkinson intended to target them, though it seems likely those plans would have come after the attempted assassination of Scalise. As for his gun purchases, one wonders which inflammatory statements from leading leftist figures might have motivated him to take the plunge.