Oops, Trump’s pick to replace Pompeo at the CIA was involved in torture.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday condemned President Trump’s decision to nominate Gina Haspel to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), saying she was involved in “one of darkest chapters in American history.”

He put out a statement saying she needs to explain her position on torture.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration “squandered precious moral authority” to get intelligence, McCain said.

Haspel joined the CIA in 1985 and faced scrutiny for her role surrounding waterboarding and other interrogation techniques used on detainees at a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Haspel

This is not at all chilling:

Russian state television has warned “traitors” and Kremlin critics that they should not settle in England because of an increased risk of dying in mysterious circumstances.

“Don’t choose England as a place to live. Whatever the reasons, whether you’re a professional traitor to the motherland or you just hate your country in your spare time, I repeat, no matter, don’t move to England,” the presenter Kirill Kleymenov said during a news programme on Channel One, state TV’s flagship station.

“Something is not right there. Maybe it’s the climate. But in recent years there have been too many strange incidents with a grave outcome. People get hanged, poisoned, they die in helicopter crashes and

Also…

John McEntee, who has served as President Trump’s personal assistant since Mr. Trump won the presidency, was forced out of his position and escorted from the White House on Monday after his security clearance was revoked, officials with knowledge of the incident said.

Oops.

But don’t worry! He’s ok!

But Mr. McEntee will remain in the president’s orbit despite his abrupt departure from the White House. Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign announced Tuesday that Mr. McEntee has been named Senior Adviser for Campaign Operations, putting him in a position to remain as a close aide during the next several years.

The brass won’t talk about why he was fired, but.

But a senior administration official said that many of

Jacob Tobia’s tweets about how we need to stop talking about women and feminism were a short version  of an article he wrote explaining that we need to stop talking about women and feminism. It’s good to get his full article in all its profundity.

This month is Women’s History Month. From Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes, to the fervor of the #TimesUp movement, to Women’s Marches across the country and around the world, women’s power has been growing and spreading and amplifying like whoa. Which is, obviously, something I am thrilled about.

Obviously. But. We can tell there’s a “but” coming. We’d be able to tell even if we hadn’t read his tweets.

But amid all

Bannon is in Europe hoping to make it as horrible as he helped make the US. The  guy dreams big.

“All I’m trying to be,” he said, “is the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement.”

“Populist” is code for sexist racist belligerent hateful and far-right.

On Saturday, he is set to headline the annual conference of France’s far-right National Front in the northern city of Lille, where he will be introduced by its leader, Marine Le Pen. People with knowledge of Mr. Bannon’s itinerary suggested that he might meet later in the weekend with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, but Mr. Bannon declined to say whether or not he would, only saying that he admired Mr. Orban as

Let’s just stop talking about women, mkay? Can we do that now finally at last? It’s so excluding.

I don’t want to be difficult, but I’m just not sure that the word “woman” can hold all of the political weight that we need it to in 2018. Organizing solely around 'womanhood' is also organizing solely around the gender binary #InternationalWomensDay https://t.co/PV1OAUHMyL

— Jacob Tobia (@JacobTobia) March 8, 2018

Yeah and organizing around anti-racism excludes white people. Organizing to protect immigrants’ rights excludes people who were here all along. Anti-poverty campaigns exclude rich people. Organizing workers excludes bosses. Won’t somebody please think of the bosses?

I look around a room full of Women’s March supporters and I wonder to myself,

Breaking news from the Beeb:

A former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, Theresa May has told MPs.

The prime minister said the government had concluded it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on 4 March.

She’s summoned the Russian ambassador to talk it over.

My first thought was: stupid of them to use an agent with their fingerprints on it. My second thought was: oh wait, no it isn’t, because they’re sending a message. We will get you.… Read the rest

Shashi Tharoor points out that the Hollywood Churchill was first the mass murderer Churchill.

During World War II, Churchill declared himself in favor of “terror bombing.” He wrote that he wanted “absolutely devastating, exterminating attacks by very heavy bombers.” Horrors such as the firebombing of Dresden were the result.

In the fight for Irish independence, Churchill, in his capacity as secretary of state for war and air, was one of the few British officials in favor of bombing Irish protesters, suggesting in 1920 that airplanes should use “machine-gun fire or bombs” to scatter them.

Like what the fascists carried out in Guernica, but decades earlier. The fact that Churchill liked the idea doesn’t mean it happened, and I … Read the rest

H/t Lady Mondegreen… Read the rest

Lawrence Krauss has resurfaced on Twitter; his fans are rushing to give him support and air hugs.

Back to tweets. Trigger warning: Some tweets may offend.

— Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) March 10, 2018

Jerry Coyne was doubtful at first but looked into it.

I didn’t find the specifics of most allegations fully convincing, yet the fact that there were so many of them that resembled each other meant that they could not be ignored. As I’ve said, the more independent claims there are against a person, and the more they paint a consistent pattern of behavior, the greater the likelihood that the accused is guilty.

After that article appeared, I did some digging on my own, and came

One more.

Courtlin Arrington. This is the name of the girl who died yesterday. Shot to death in school. Barely any media coverage. She was going to be a nurse. pic.twitter.com/2AKaBLJofJ

— breakthewheel (@2breakthewheel) March 8, 2018

The Washington Post yesterday:

Arrington, a high school senior, had been accepted to college and planned to become a nurse. She is the 20th person to be gunned down on a U.S. high school campus this year. The episode at Huffman High is the third fatal school shooting this year.

The shooting happened Wednesday as classes let out at the school, exactly three weeks after 17 people were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla. Another school shooting, at