The Guardian reports:

The investigation into the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal has widened, as police sealed off the graves of his wife, Liudmila, and son, Alexander, and confirmed that a total of 21 people had been treated as a result of the incident.

The police officer who was exposed to the nerve agent used on the Skripals, named on Thursday as DS Nick Bailey, remained in a serious but stable condition.

…

Forensics officers began a major search for evidence at Skripal’s semi-detached house. They also cordoned off the graves in Salisbury cemetery where Liudmila and Alexander Skripal were interred in adjacent plots, and sealed off a garage and recovery service elsewhere in the city.

I wouldn’t … Read the rest

Trump fans.

Here are some Trump supporters threatening to burn down a woman’s bookstore. Because, deplorable. pic.twitter.com/687HE3MVDo

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) March 9, 2018

… Read the rest

To the surprise of no one who was paying attention, it turns out that the leaders of the Women’s March have a Farrakhan problem.

Mass movements are sewn together from a wide variety of sources, so they often sweep in unwanted companions as they move toward their goals. No one, however, expected to discover that three Women’s March co-chairs—Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory—had ties to Farrakhan.

No one at all? When Sarsour’s hijab was on all those March posters?

It all came to a head last week, after Farrakhan delivered his address to the annual Nation of Islam gathering for Saviours’ Day, the sect’s three-day holiday honoring its founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad. Farrakhan denounced “Satanic Jews,” said

Part 5 of BuzzFeed’s big Russia series –

Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was murdered in Washington, DC, on the eve of a planned meeting with the US Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US government’s official explanation of his death.

Mikhail Lesin’s battered body was discovered in his Dupont Circle hotel room on the morning of Nov. 5, 2015, with blunt-force injuries to the head, neck, and torso. After an almost yearlong “comprehensive investigation,” a federal prosecutor announced last October that Lesin died alone in his room due to a series of drunken falls “after days of excessive consumption of alcohol.” His death was ruled an “accident,” and prosecutors closed the

Neither do I.

Father of Parkland victim slams NRA videos:

"If this was put out by a terrorist organization, we would be raising the terror threat level in this country. Why are we letting this lobby have anything to do with DC? I don't understand it!" https://t.co/9eh7udBMsx pic.twitter.com/FZeTqvTRmK

— ABC News (@ABC) March 7, 2018

… Read the rest

The Huffington Post tells us the word “globalist” is the hot new thing in the White House right now…and not in a good way.

The term “globalist” has been used at the White House at least three times this week in reference to an outgoing Jewish Trump administration official, raising some eyebrows because the word is increasingly used in xenophobic and anti-Semitic contexts.

The word came up on Wednesday when a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether a similar candidate will take the place of Gary Cohn, the outgoing director of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council.

“He was a noted free trader, a globalist. Will the president seek another globalist, another free trader?” Fox

Ah Devin Nunes – the lying weasel who will commit any outrage to try to save his darling Don.

…last week, the California Republican was credibly accused of leaking texts from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking member to Fox News as part of an unusually misguided partisan stunt.

Patriotism at its finest.

Slate added last week that Nunes’ greatest hits include “being forced to admit that he hasn’t personally read the court documents that he based an FBI–Hillary conspiracy memo on, being forced to admit that the FBI actually did disclose the information about Trump ‘dossier’ author Christopher Steele that Nunes had accused it of not disclosing, and being forced to admit that he had coordinated his statements about

The Trump administration cares.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made a contentious visit to the site of last month’s Florida school shooting Wednesday, in which she was criticized by survivors and abruptly walked out of her own press conference.

Ok, the Trump administration cares about people who are deferential to them.

DeVos spent the morning at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where former student Nikolas Cruz gunned down 17 students and teachers on Valentine’s Day. Her visit immediately sparked criticism and backlash from shooting survivors and advocates on social media.

“Do something unexpected: answer our questions,” Aly Sheehy tweeted at DeVos. “You came to our school just for publicity and avoided our questions for the 90 minutes you were actually

It was a nerve agent.

A nerve agent was used to try to murder a former Russian spy and his daughter, police have said.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon and remain critically ill.

A police officer who was the first to attend the scene is now in a serious condition in hospital, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, said.

Is that terrifying enough yet? Will Trump ever have second thoughts about his best friend Volodya?

There are 14 other deaths under scrutiny.

In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, another former Russian agent, was rushed to hospital after collapsing in London. As the world watched, a rare and highly radioactive isotope

The BBC:

The leader and deputy leader of far-right group Britain First have been found guilty of religiously-aggravated harassment.

Paul Golding, 36, and Jayda Fransen, 31, were arrested over the distribution of leaflets and posting of online videos during a Muslim gang-rape trial.

…

The court heard they had targeted homes and people in Kent whom they believed [to be] connected to a rape trial at Canterbury Crown Court where three Muslim men and a teenager were convicted of rape and jailed.

Is this a matter of free speech, or of targeted harassment?

I think it’s the second.

During their trial in January, Folkestone Magistrates’ Court heard the pair confronted people they believed were defendants in the gang-rape trial.

Antonio Damasio has a new book, and started a Twitter account apparently to promote it. Interesting thoughts.

Feelings have not been given the credit they deserve as motives, monitors and negotiators of human cultures. #TheStrangeOrderofThings

— Antonio Damasio (@damasiousc) January 18, 2018

Love, compassion and gratitude are emotions and are forces for the good. Only negative emotions such as anger, hate or contempt are destructive. Blaming emotions for our social ills misses that critical distinction.

— Antonio Damasio (@damasiousc) January 26, 2018

Claiming reason as the solution to social ills misses the point that often facts and arguments only improve conditions when they persuade and prompt action. Persuasion requires emotions and feelings as the critical negotiators.

— Antonio Damasio (@damasiousc)

Kellyanne Conway broke the law. Twice.

A federal ethics agency has ruled that one of President Trump’s closest White House aides twice broke the law separating government from politics.

Kellyanne Conway, who was Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, advocated for Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s recent Senate election during live television interviews broadcast from the White House lawn.

The Office of Special Counsel found Conway violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from using their office for partisan politics.

The OSC is nothing to do with Mueller’s investigation. (They should use different names then. Have a heart.)

In two interviews on the Alabama race, one with Fox News and one with CNN, Conway spoke in front of the