Well there’s a surprise, Trump has finally joined the move to rebuke Putin.

President Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the United States on Monday, adding to a growing cascade of similar actions taken by western allies in response to Russia’s alleged poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.

Poland, Italy, Denmark, France and Germany were among 14 European Union member nations announcing plans to expel Russians from their countries in solidarity with Britain, which previously expelled 23 Russian diplomats after the poisoning. Canada also said it would expel four.

They’re kicking out 12 intelligence officers at the UN and closing the consulate in Seattle, with seven days to pack up and leave.

In a call with reporters, senior White House officials said that the move was to root out Russians actively engaging in intelligence operations against the country, and to show that the United States would stand with NATO allies. The officials said that the closure of the consulate in Seattle was ordered because of its proximity to a U.S. naval base.

The one in Bremerton, I suppose.

Kadri Liik suggests this may be the beginning of the end for Putin’s “plausible deniability” approach.

The attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent who was found unresponsive in southwest England earlier this month, poisoned with a deadly nerve agent, may be the moment when “plausible deniability” has reached its limits. In fact, it now looks as if it is turning against its masters in the Kremlin. The United States’ decision on Monday, alongside Canada and a number of European countries, to expel Russians in retaliation for the poisoning makes clear to Moscow that its actions have consequences, whether it denies them or not.

Since the annexation of Crimea, Russia has resorted to “plausible deniability” again and again. The interference in the American presidential elections was a classic case: Mr. Putin has repeatedly emphasized that Russia has not intervened “at the level of the government,” but he admits that some “patriotic hackers” or trolls with Russian citizenship might indeed have been active.

I kind of wonder how they’re using “plausible” in cases like that, but whatever.

This strategy isn’t an unmitigated success. In 2016, in a big embarrassment for Moscow, two Russian intelligence agents were indicted by Montenegro for plotting a coup that was supposed to take place under the cover of spontaneous anti-NATO protests. More tragic was the huge blunder of Russia’s proxies shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Moscow claims to this day that it had nothing to do with it, but it was nonetheless unable to escape reprimand from the international community.

There’s no such thing as “the international community”; there’s only the rest of the world, parts of which can work together all the time and parts of which can unite for particular purposes and parts of which go their own way.

Liik says it’s backfiring because the use of all these proxies means that now other countries are suspicious even of legit activities like business promotions.

Russia’s foreign ministry isn’t happy about this situation and neither are Moscow’s business circles. But they cannot raise the issue with the Kremlin: Because these activities are being denied, they can’t be brought up in normal policy discussions. So it’s effectively impossible for the different Russian institutions to come together and discuss what the country as a whole wins or loses by engaging in such actions.

So it might turn out that Vlad has been a little bit too clever, or too short-term clever, or too not even all that clever actually.

Moscow’s track record with “plausible deniability” — from Ukraine to the United States — makes things worse. The world does not yet know the full details of the Skripal poisoning, but it does not feel like waiting, as the expulsions make clear. Too often in the past, Moscow has denied its involvement in cases that later end up being traced to the Kremlin or its proxies. The result is that its denials lack credibility. Now, the successful use of “plausible deniability” in all the previous cases collides with the Kremlin’s current interests and contributes to the verdict: guilty until proven innocent.

Well, good.

Joan Walsh on yesterday.

Parkland high school shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez galvanized a student revolt against gun violence with a fiery speech calling out NRA-bought politicians, just a few days after a disturbed young man murdered 17 of her peers—in six minutes and 20 seconds. At Saturday’s March For Our Lives in Washington, Gonzalez galvanized a movement with silence.

She recited the names of all 17 Parkland victims, and then she stood mute, tears streaming down her cheeks, her eyes sometimes closed. The crowd, rooting for the poised young woman with the shaved head and wearing a braided choker, grew confused. A few minutes earlier, a nervous Parkland classmate had actually vomited on stage during her speech, and then recovered with world-class aplomb. “I just threw up on international television and it feels great!” the brave Samantha Fuentes told the crowd. Was Gonzalez having a case of nerves? Next to me, Parkland resident and substitute teacher Debbi Schapiro watched her anxiously, then shook her head and murmured, “This is too much responsibility for these kids.” In the crowd beneath Gonzalez, a few students tried to start the chant “Never again,” but it faded quickly. Spontaneously, they fell silent and simply held high their signs of protest. Behind us, people lifted their cellphones to record the unlikely silence.

Gonzalez finally spoke. “Since the time that I came out here, it has been 6 minutes and 20 seconds,” she said. “Fight for your lives before it’s someone else’s job.”

In between the two sentences she pointed out that was how long it took the shooter to kill all those people, and that at 6.20 he put his rifle down and mingled with the fleeing students and escaped to walk free for an hour before he was arrested.

The second revelation of the day, for me, is how hard the Parkland students have worked to meld their cause to the cause of young black people who disproportionately suffer gun violence. I met Curtis Kelly, the father of 16-year-old Zaire Kelly, shot during a robbery in Washington, DC last year as he was coming home from a college prep class. He says the Parkland students have been working with students at Kelly’s Thurgood Marshall High School; his son Zion Kelly, Zaire’s surviving twin, spoke at the rally.

Zion got choked up talking about his brother. “Can you imagine what it’s like to lose someone that close to you?” The students on the stage cheered him on, as his father hugged one of the many friends who’d come out to the event. I have not done the kind of reporting that would let me say with certainty that the Parkland movement—and it is a movement—has done all it can to bring in gun violence victims of color. But Cullen says “behind the scenes,” that’s how many of the Parkland survivors spend much of their time. “They really see the bigger picture. They know there’s more power if they join forces with kids from Chicago, and everywhere—that’s where victory is.”

Meanwhile, the NRA…

Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.

Billionaires and elites, is it. So the NRA is all about arming the poor so that they can rise up against the rich?

Well, great, Rick Santorum has the solution – tell the kids to stop whining and just learn first aid for when their shooter arrives. Right?! Goddam lazy kids expecting other people to pass reasonable gun control laws.

CNN commentator and former Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum on Sunday suggested students protesting for gun control legislation would be better served by taking CPR classes and preparing for active shooter scenarios.

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Totally! Kids today are so spoiled, looking to legislators to pass legislation. Kids shooting up schools with automatic weapons are their problem, not ours! God, grow up, willya?

“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” Santorum said. “They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem? How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community? What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter?’… Those are the kind of things where you can take it internally, and say, ‘Here’s how I’m going to deal with this. Here’s how I’m going to help the situation,’ instead of going and protesting and saying, ‘Oh, someone else needs to pass a law to protect me.'”

Absolutely. It’s the same with hurricanes, you know? People expect someone to help them when their city floods, instead of taking action to say, “How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem?” An individual can bail whole buckets full of water in a day. I have no idea where they would put all that water, but that’s their problem, as an individual.

Last week Mississippi passed a law making abortion illegal after 15 weeks.

On Monday, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1510 into law, making it immediately illegal for a woman to obtain an abortion after 15 weeks gestation. Mississippi’s previous law restricted abortion access within the state to 20 weeks. The state’s sole abortion clinic, Women’s Health Organization, located in Jackson, does not perform abortions past 16 weeks.

On Tuesday a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order to stop the law from going into effect.

Meanwhile, Mississippi is the poorest state in the country.

Organizers estimate 800 thousand student protesters in DC.

The protest stretches for miles.

John Lewis was there.

Rep. John Lewis who marched with MLK, speaking at #MarchForOurLives rally in Atlanta: "Never give up. Never give in. Keep your faith and you're going to have a victory."pic.twitter.com/2jpKExpE2V

— Black Girl Magic ✨ (@BlackGirlMagix) March 24, 2018

We march for those lost to gun violence. We march in solidarity with survivors across the country. We march for those in our schools and those not yet old enough to attend. Marching together, our voices rising together, we can be the change we need. #MarchForOurLives pic.twitter.com/4fqnVWuhZq

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 24, 2018

Photos from the #MarchForOurLives protests around the world https://t.co/FlH4sFfhhY pic.twitter.com/wOnW0db6Ql

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 24, 2018

Jennifer Hudson gave a moving performance at #MarchForOurLives

She lost her mother, brother and nephew to gun violence

pic.twitter.com/x1LRkDR9Jy

— ☇RiotWomenn☇ (@riotwomennn) March 24, 2018

38 degrees and rain didn’t stop hundreds of people from coming out in Salem, Oregon for the #marchforourlives. pic.twitter.com/nXGRYAZfKh

— Gingkogirl ☮ (@CASwinney) March 24, 2018

NEW: An emotional Emma Gonzalez stands in silence after reading out the names of her classmates who were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. #MarchForOurLives https://t.co/3kn1iCtJjo pic.twitter.com/92kFSH6Qxh

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) March 24, 2018

Let’s go back back back in time to see why a Republican-led Senate committee in 2005 refused to approve John Bolton as Bush’s ambassador to the UN, because now he’s in a job that doesn’t need Senate approval.

One moment singularly derailed his nomination. Testifying before the usually staid Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2005, Carl W. Ford Jr. — the former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research — called Mr. Bolton a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy” and a “serial abuser” of people beneath him in the chain of command. Mr. Ford — a self-described conservative Republican and Bush supporter — made vivid an emerging portrait of Mr. Bolton as a bully who repeatedly sought retribution against career intelligence analysts with the temerity to contradict him.

No wonder Trump likes him. “Kiss-up, kick-down” exactly describes Trump. Smooch Pootie, kick almost everyone else.

Mr. Bolton, President Bush’s under secretary of state for arms control and international security, had a general disdain for diplomacy that rankled several Republican members of the committee, including George Voinovich of Ohio and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Mr. Lugar had quietly counseled the administration not to nominate him.

That disdain, in and of itself, did not sink his nomination. Rather, it was the testimony we heard and evidence we uncovered that Mr. Bolton had a habit of twisting intelligence to back his bellicosity and sought to remove anyone who objected.

He insisted Cuba was developing biological weapons; people who knew more about it disagreed; Bolton tried to get them moved to other jobs.

Mr. Bolton also was accused of attempting to inflate the dangers of Syria’s biological and nuclear weapons programs, by trying to sneak exaggerated assertions into speeches and congressional testimony before being called on it by intelligence officials. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage reportedly issued an extraordinary decree that required Mr. Bolton to clear all of his public utterances with Mr. Armitage himself.

That sounds very Trump-like too. Trump tells shameless lies, and seems to have no qualms about it whatever.

Then in 2002, during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Bolton helped orchestrate the removal of the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (which would win the Nobel Peace Prize more than decade later). His crime? Trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Iraq. (Mr. Bolton said he was fired for “incompetence.”) Those inspectors might have debunked claims that Saddam Hussein retained a stockpile of chemical weapons and was pursuing a nuclear arsenal — the justification for the following year’s invasion.

He tried to get other people fired. He frequently demanded the identities of US officials whose names were hidden in sensitive intelligence; some on the Committee worried that was because he wanted to retaliate against them.

Other witnesses came forward to allege abusive behavior by Mr. Bolton during his time as a lawyer in the private sector — screaming, threatening, throwing documents and, in the words of one woman, “genuinely behaving like a madman.”

All of this ultimately proved too much for Senator Voinovich. In a remarkable speech to his colleagues on the committee, a visibly pained Mr. Voinovich explained his decision to vote against Mr. Bolton, effectively killing the nomination. We’ve heard, he said, that Mr. Bolton is “an ideologue and fosters an atmosphere of intimidation. He does not tolerate disagreement. He does not tolerate dissent.”

“This is not,” he continued, “the behavior that should be endorsed as the face of the United States to the world.” President Bush used a recess appointment to make Mr. Bolton the ambassador without Senate approval.

We are about to find out whether this sort of behavior is any more appropriate for a president’s national security adviser, arguably the most powerful, sensitive and demanding job in the administration short of the president’s — and one that requires an honest broker, willing to present the president with ideas and analyses he does not agree with.

Bad moon.

Benjamin Wittes shares a bit of hate-mail.

This guy is charming…

A reminder to everyone of my policy of tweeting abusive emails I receive with the email of the sender visible.

You have no expectation of privacy in sending abuse to strangers. pic.twitter.com/UpnFPUeIon

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) March 24, 2018

It’s the usual fever-dream nonsense, but what caught my attention was “Joe DiGenova is good old Irish-Italian stock.” Good old what? Since when is Irish-Italian considered a “stock”? (Jokes about minestrone with extra potato occur to me, but I push them aside.) Since when is Irish-Italian treated as a US ethnic grouping? Since never, that’s since when. Wittes’s correspondent is apparently just thinking “good old immigrant stock, the kind who immigrated so long ago that nobody thinks of them as immigrants any more, your Kennedys and McCarthys and Scavinos and Scaramuccis.” That’s nice, but he’s an idiot if he thinks those immigrants were welcomed with champagne and excellent housing. Like hell they were. They were greeted with hostility and tenements and crap jobs. It’s just a matter of time passing that makes them seem to Abusive Emailer like old, respectable, patriotic, normal, ok “stock.” Just a shot in the dark here but I wonder if one of his parents is of Irish background while the other is of Italian. Wild guess.

Anyway the point is, guess what, genius, time does wonders for injecting Respectability into once-hated immigrant groups provided they are white.

There’s also his bashful list of the things he likes best about his girlfriend, but that’s another story.

As reporters and commentators are always saying, there is so much terrible flooding out of the Trump Trainwreck that we overlook a lot of important stuff because there are only so many hours in the day. For instance there is the work they’re doing to prevent members of NAFTA from putting warning labels on unhealthy processed foods. That’s not the incineration of the planet, but it is very shitty and callous.

Urged on by big American food and soft-drink companies, the Trump administration is using the trade talks with Mexico and Canada to try to limit the ability of the pact’s three members — including the United States — to warn consumers about the dangers of junk food, according to confidential documents outlining the American position.

The American stance reflects an intensifying battle among trade officials, the food industry and governments across the hemisphere. The administration’s position could help insulate American manufacturers from pressure to include more explicit labels on their products, both abroad and in the United States. But health officials worry that it would also impede international efforts to contain a growing health crisis.

Which is more important? The health of millions, or the profits of people who make junky “food”?

[T]he Office of the United States Trade Representative, which is leading the Nafta talks on the American side, is trying to head off the momentum. It is pushing to limit the ability of any Nafta member to require consumer warnings on the front of sugary drinks and fatty packaged foods, according to a draft of the proposal reviewed by The New York Times.

The American provision seeks to prevent any warning symbol, shape or color that “inappropriately denotes that a hazard exists from consumption of the food or nonalcoholic beverages.”

“Inappropriate” if you want to make those foods or beverages with all their sugar, salt and fat.

Proponents of more explicit labels said the Trump administration’s proposal and the corporate pressure behind it hold the potential to handcuff public health interests for decades.

“It is one of the most invasive forms of industrial interference we have seen,” said Alejandro Calvillo, the founder of El Poder del Consumidor, or Consumer Power, a health advocacy group in Mexico that was illegally targeted with government spyware when it fought for a soda tax in Mexico. “The collusion between the industry and the government is not only at the level of spying — it reaches the level of the renegotiation of Nafta and the nation’s own policy against obesity.”

The American proposal conflicts with the guidance from Mexico’s national health institute and from the World Health Organization. Both have recommended that Mexico pass regulations to help combat diabetes, which claims 80,000 lives a year there. That is one of the highest rates in the world — and more than double the record number of homicides in the nation in 2017.

Yes but profits! What do 80 thousand diabetes deaths in Mexico matter compared to profits?!

Heading off pressure for more explicit warnings through the Nafta negotiation is especially appealing to the food and beverage industry because it could help limit domestic regulation in the United States as well as avert a broad global move to adopt mandatory health-labeling standards.

“It kind of kills a law before it can be written,” said Lora Verheecke, a researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory, a group that tracks lobbying efforts. “And once you put it in one trade agreement, it can become the precedent for all future deals with future countries.”

And then more profits!

Yesterday:

A Wisconsin judge Thursday ordered Gov. Scott Walker to call special elections to fill a pair of legislative seats vacated by fellow Republicans, handing a victory to Democrats who have pushed for the elections to be held.

A national Democratic group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder filed the lawsuit on behalf of voters who argued they were disenfranchised by Walker’s decision not to call elections to fill the vacancies that occurred on Dec. 29.

Attorneys for Holder’s groups, the National Redistricting Foundation, argued that Walker has a legal obligation to call special elections as soon as possible. Democrats said the governor is afraid Democrats will win the seats, but Walker contends the lawsuit is a partisan, special interest effort to waste taxpayers’ money and he’s under no legal obligation to hold the elections.

Partisan. To expect vacated seats to be filled in a timely fashion.

Today:

Republican legislative leaders in Wisconsin called lawmakers back to the Capitol Friday afternoon to change state law governing special elections.

The move comes a day after a court ruled that Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, must hold a pair of special elections, which Walker has sought to avoid.

Democrats called the plan to change the law an “attack on democracy.”

Remember that Supreme Court vacancy that the Republicans wouldn’t let Obama fill? Remember how the Republicans just came right out and said they wouldn’t even hold hearings on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland or of anyone else Obama nominated either?

They fight dirty.

Libraries. Cherish the libraries, save the libraries, stock the libraries, fund the libraries.

What libraries look like when you don't have a government systematically starving communities of the arts: this is the section of Stockholm's main library aimed at 10-13 year olds. I nearly cried. pic.twitter.com/PjdFPOmVbA

— Sarah Perry (@SarahGPerry) March 22, 2018

The Times editorial board offers detail on why Bolton will be dangerous.

The national security adviser is the person who makes sure the president hears the views of all the national security agencies, including the State Department and Defense Department, and drives policy toward a decision. It is hard to see Mr. Bolton playing the honest broker. Mr. Bolton is known to play a ruthless inside game as he maneuvered to win bureaucratic battles and freeze out people he thinks crossed him. He has been such a lightning rod that he couldn’t get confirmed as United Nations ambassador in 2005 so President George W. Bush gave him a recess appointment, and he stayed in the job about a year. It was considered unlikely that the Senate could have confirmed him as secretary of state, but the national security adviser job doesn’t require confirmation.

Bringing on the fiery Mr. Bolton now, at a delicate moment with North Korea, is a terrible decision. While Mr. Trump has often threatened North Korea with military action, he accepted Mr. Kim’s invitation to a summit, brokered by South Korea’s president, who is eager for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis.

Mr. Bolton, by contrast, told Fox News earlier this month that talks would be worthless and has called South Korean leaders “putty in North Korea’s hands.” On February 28, he insisted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “it is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first.”

Enjoy your day.