Matthew Yglesias Verified account @mattyglesias

Under socialism you will only get a straw if you want one, whereas under good freedom straws are mandatory.

Devin Nunes Verified account @DevinNunes

At restaurant tonight waitress asks if we want straws. Says she has to ask now in fear of “THE STRAW POLICE”. Welcome to Socialism in California!

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1104753192389304321

Australia's former foreign minister says she was mistaken for the spouse of a politician by US First Lady Melania Trump, in her latest comments on the subordinate role of women in conservative politics.

Julie Bishop has been vocal about the treatment of senior female politicians since she stepped down after the ouster of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull last year.

Bishop, who was Australia's first female foreign minister and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, is among several senior politicians from the centre-right government set to quit parliament at upcoming national elections amid expectations of an opposition win.

She told a talk in Adelaide Saturday that Melania thought her partner David Patton was Australia's foreign minister, instead of her, after President Donald Trump stuck up a conversation with him, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

https://news.yahoo.com/melania-trump-mistook-former-female-australia-fm-partner-100014359.html;_ylt=AwrC1CgN8oRcTFEAewvQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTEyMmZlOXIwBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjcxNzRfMQRzZWMDc3I-

For the past month, Keith Miller has been overwhelmed by thank-yous.

From all over the country, parents of children with autism have said thank you. His bosses have said thank you. A woman from Canada expressed her gratitude by sending a box of socks and Canadian candy.

He has heard from national and local media. He has been invited to speak. He has been hailed as a hero.

And all of it because one night he put on his security guard’s uniform, went to work and, in his view, just did his job.

“It’s very, very surprising, and humbling,” Miller said this week when I called to talk about the response to the story of what happened one night in late December at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

Last month, I recounted that story in a column, about how Miller was the sergeant in charge of the security team on the night Walker Hughes arrived in the ER.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/schmich/ct-met-schmich-autism-keith-miller-20190307-story.html

Enough is enough! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs to stop inserting herself into our every waking moment!

I am sick of hearing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from my voice talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I would like to spend just one day without seeking out, looking at and commenting on pictures of her everywhere she goes. It would be nice, just once, not to have to be enraged by clicking on an article that mentions her name, and then another, and then another. Just once I want to spend a day without bringing her up, unprovoked, in the middle of a discussion of an unrelated subject.

I just don’t know why people are so obsessed with her, specifically, myself. Why has she compelled me to type her name so many times that when I type the letter “A,” my phone supplies “OC"? It is a conspiracy, I think.

I don’t see why we — I, specifically — have to be talking about her all the time. She should not have made me build a special tab for my website that is dedicated to documenting her every move and outfit. The other day I was obliged to draw 17 caricatures of her, which I then hung over my dining room table. She is getting out of hand!

Just yesterday, I had to listen to an exhausting, 10-minute lecture from some idiot who would not shut up about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, only to discover that it was myself, talking to myself. This happens every day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/06/i-am-sick-hearing-about-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-myself-talking-about-her/?utm_term=.0efe3c876916

The strange, swampy saga of Trump donor Li Yang.

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago—suggests she had some success in doing so.

Yang, who goes by Cindy, and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017. The company describes itself on its website, which is mostly in Chinese, as an “international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace.” But the firm notes that its services also address clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, Yang’s company says its “activities for clients” have included providing them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasts it has “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggests it can set up a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.” (The same day the Herald story about Yang broke, the website stopped functioning.)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/

Chats show extremists claim Carlson has “done more for” white supremacists than they “could ever hope to.”



A trove of leaked chat messages reportedly from members of white supremacist group Identity Evropa shows the group’s appreciation for Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Members praised segments from Tucker Carlson Tonight and fantasized about the idea of him running for president someday.

On March 6, the nonprofit media organization Unicorn Riot released chat logs from a Discord server reportedly used by members of Identity Evropa, a group attempting to sanitize white supremacy by rebranding its racist beliefs as pro-white “identitarianism.” The chat server’s name, “Nice Respectable People Group,” reflects Identity Evropa’s focus on “optics,” a strategy of intentionally rebranding away from obvious extremism to avoid the negative press that supposedly keeps their ideas from appealing to the mainstream.

Media Matters reviewed hundreds of chat messages containing mentions of Carlson -- who extremists refer to with familiarity as “Tuck” or “Tucker” -- and can confirm that the white supremacists routinely turn on Fox News to watch him deliver messages aligned with their extremist cause. They see Carlson’s prime-time audience as an effective opportunity to rebrand themselves and get positive media coverage for their extremism.

Users in the leaked chats shared a Media Matters video that shows how closely Carlson’s rhetoric aligns with that of white supremacists like American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor (a point extremists have made as well), with users asking, “Where’s the lie?” and calling the video a “red-pill compilation” (the phrase “red-pilling,” a reference to the movie The Matrix, is far-right shorthand for radicalizing).

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/03/08/leaked-chat-messages-show-members-white-supremacist-group-identity-evropa-are-obsessed-tucker/223083