Baylor up big over Nebraska, Mercer in tight battle with Duke. Day of the Baptist Bears?

* Ukraine signs elements of trade deal with EU in soft-power riposte to Russia.

* At TNR Mike Konczal makes strong case Tea Party and Wall Street totally in synch on policy.

* The Atlantic‘s Lucia Graves sees softening of GOP state resistance to Medicaid expansion. I’m not so sure.

* Turkish P.M. threatening to shut down Twitter.

* Mike Tomasky uses graduation rate figures for March Madness team to make heretical liberal argument for college sports.

And in non-political news:

* Nun wows ’em on Italian version of The Voice.

Here’s another great Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions tune as we break for lunch: “People Get Ready:”

YouTube video

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Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.