The shoe might start to pinch now.

The United States and its European allies are expelling dozens of Russian diplomats in a co-ordinated response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK.

It is said to be the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history.

More than 20 countries have aligned with the UK, expelling more than 100 diplomats.

Russia says it’s going to “retaliate” – which is silly because it did its retaliating in advance, which is why the allies are responding.

President of the European Council Donald Tusk said the EU states had decided to expel Russian diplomats as a direct result of a meeting, held last week about the Salisbury poisoning.

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

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

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 … Read the rest

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.… Read the rest

Organizers estimate 800 thousand student protesters in DC.

The protest stretches for miles.

John Lewis was there.

https://twitter.com/BlackGirlMagix/status/977666643072610304… Read the rest

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

https://twitter.com/CASwinney/status/977619318023139328

NEW: An emotional Emma Gonzalez stands in silence after reading out the names of her classmates who were gunned down at

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

Benjamin Wittes shares a bit of hate-mail.

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/977564639990026240

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 … Read the rest

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

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