News from Tennessee:

The Tennessee statehouse has expelled two Democratic politicians who led a gun control protest that halted legislative proceedings last week. In a rare move, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 72-25 to expel Justin Jones and 69-26 to remove Justin Pearson.

But an expulsion vote failed against a third Democratic lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, who also joined the protest. Republicans said the trio had brought “disorder and dishonour to the House”.

Republicans kicked out two elected Representatives of the other party because they felt like it.

Republicans said the trio had brought “disorder and dishonour to the House”. Crowds of protesters have attended the State Capitol since a school shooting. The 27 March attack at Nashville’s Covenant School killed six people, including three children.

The so-called “Tennessee Three” took to the House floor chanting “no action, no peace” during a protest on 30 March, which also saw hundreds of pro-gun control demonstrators converge on the statehouse. Mr Jones, 27, and Mr Pearson, 28, used a megaphone and banged on the House lectern as they made rousing speeches and addressed the protesters who crowded around the chamber’s public viewing platform.

“We don’t want to be up here, but we have no choice but to find a way… to disrupt business as normal, because business as normal is our children dying,” Mr Pearson said. The chamber’s proceedings were brought to a standstill for nearly an hour. All three also chanted “enough is enough” and “power to the people”. Political analysists said Ms Johnson may have been spared expulsion because she did not use a megaphone. However she has suggested that Republicans did not expel her because she is white, whereas Mr Jones and Mr Pearson are both black.

US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, slammed the expulsions as “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent”.

Without precedent only because in the old days they were never allowed to get elected in the first place.

Lawmakers argued for hours about the expulsions on Thursday, which are the first such actions taken without the support of both parties in Tennessee’s modern history. Ms Johnson was just one vote short of the required two-thirds majority to expel her, with her supporters in the chamber cheering at the result that she would remain.

The three lawmakers acknowledged they broke House rules by speaking without being formally recognised, but insisted their actions did not warrant expulsion. Some Republican members said the Democrats’ actions amounted to an insurrection, with House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, comparing the incident to the Capitol Riots.

Oh come on. Three lawmakers talking without being recognized, even with two bullhorns, is not comparable to the full-on assaults of the Capitol riots.