Congrats to my Georgia Bulldogs for surviving a butterfingered ball-handling performance to beat Vermont in the NIT. Now you can get back to your watching of the frantic first day of March Madness.
Here are some midday news/views treats:
* In another sign of a very slow news day, WaPo’s Reid Wilson keeps us up-to-date on the battles in Tennessee over how to define “Tennessee Whiskey.”
* The NAACP Legal Defense publishes a handy, and depressing, summary of how states have responded to SCOTUS’ weakening of the Voting Rights Act.
* TPM’s Tom Kludt offers an explainer for a very nasty battle involving reporters from Firedoglake, the Daily Caller, and BuzzFeed that erupted on Twitter yesterday. Have some hand sanitizer ready if you choose to read all about it.
* Prospect‘s Paul Waldman has some sensible things to say about the different components of a media diet in the context of the general mugging of 538 going on.
* Westboro Baptist Church’s Fred Phelps dies at 84. I’m not one to make definitive judgments about anyone else’s soul, but do hope Fred wore light clothing to the afterlife.
And in non-political news:
* Both WaPo’s Alyssa Rosenberg and TNR’s Esther Breger offer positive reviews of the FX series The Americans‘ treatment of sexual assault.
As we break for lunch, here’s another tune from Hubert Sumlin, performing “Come On In My House” from Chicago Blues Jam. There’s a two-minute intro, but worth the wait.
