memeorandum: A Clinton-era centrist Democrat explains why it's time to give democratic socialists a chance (Zack Beauchamp/Vox)

12:05 AM ET, March 5, 2019

Top Items:

AOC's chief of staff ran $1M slush fund by diverting campaign cash to his own companies — Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed …

Discussion: Hot Air, Townhall, The Gateway Pundit, twitchy.com, Front Page Magazine and The New Neo

Andrew Kerr / The Daily Caller:

Ocasio-Cortez And Her Chief Of Staff ‘Could Be Facing Jail Time’ If Their Control Over PAC Was Intentionally Hidden, Former FEC Commissioner Says — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a top aide appear to control an outside PAC credited with being the central force behind her June 2018 primary victory.

Discussion: Daily Wire, TheBlaze and New York Post

Daily Mail:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's mom hopes daughter marries her boyfriend — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's mother Blanca now lives in Florida and her Trump-supporting neighbors don't know the Democrat star is her daughter.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, The Hill, Louder With Crowder, New York Post, twitchy.com, Washington Free Beacon and Instapundit

Business Insider:
More than a third of millennials share Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's worry about having kids …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Climate Depot

Alex Pappas / Fox News:
Greenpeace co-founder tears into Ocasio-Cortez, Green New Deal: ‘Pompous little twit’

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Daily Caller, RedState, IJR and Pirate's Cove

Claude Thompson / Washington Examiner: Ocasio-Cortez refuses to denounce Maduro

Wall Street Journal:

Lawyer for Cohen Approached Trump Attorneys About Pardon — An attorney for Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, raised the possibility of a pardon with attorneys for the president after federal agents raided Mr. Cohen's properties in April, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Discussion: Political Wire, The Week and Mediaite

John Bresnahan / Politico:

House Dems will take floor action to confront Omar's latest Israel comments — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats will take floor action Wednesday in response to controversial remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar about Israel, the second such rebuke of the freshman Democrat from party leaders in recent weeks.

Henry Olsen / Washington Post:

Ilhan Omar is the Steve King of the left — Rep. Ilhan Omar has, yet again, angered many House Democrats and Jewish groups by making anti-Semitic comments over the weekend. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the rest of the leadership need to realize that Omar (D-Minn.) has become their party's version of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

Discussion: Splinter, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Daily Wire, New York Post, Mediaite, Washington Times, USA Today and Townhall

James Kirchick / Washington Post:

Jeremy Corbyn is thoroughly indecent — LONDON — Everything you need to know about the British Labour Party is contained in the fact that Luciana Berger is no longer a member and Alex Scott-Samuel is. — Two weeks ago Berger, a member of parliament, shocked the nation when she announced …

Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Ilhan Omar's Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?

Discussion: twitchy.com, Townhall, TheBlaze and IJR

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Ilhan Omar is using President Trump's playbook

Discussion: Breitbart, Roll Call and Algemeiner.com

Philip Klein / Washington Examiner:
Nancy Pelosi promotes Rolling Stone cover with Ilhan Omar as she continues to spread anti-Semitism

Discussion: ThinkProgress, RedState and Washington Times

James Comey / Washington Post:

Republicans are wrong. Transparency is possible in the Mueller investigation. — James Comey is a former director of the FBI and a former deputy attorney general. — Attorney General William P. Barr will decide how much of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's findings and conclusions …

Discussion: Raw Story

Chris Strohm / Bloomberg:

Trump's New Attorney General Won't Recuse Himself in Mueller Probe — William Barr says he is following advice of ethics officers — Trump attacked Sessions for recusing himself in inquiry — Attorney General William Barr said he won't recuse himself from being in charge …

Discussion: Breitbart

Dan Mangan / CNBC:
Special counsel Robert Mueller notifies judge that Trump friend Roger Stone posted Instagram image …

Discussion: Axios, Mother Jones, BuzzFeed News, The Gateway Pundit, Variety, The Resurgent, New York Post and Towleroad Gay News

Morgan Chalfant / The Hill:
Whitaker out at Justice Department

Discussion: Axios, Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit

Julia Ainsley / NBC News:
Matthew Whitaker has left the Justice Department

Discussion: Law & Crime and Talking Points Memo

Jane Mayer / New Yorker:

The Making of the Fox News White House — Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda? — In January, during the longest government shutdown in America's history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande.

Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
Fox News's propaganda isn't just unethical — research shows it's enormously influential

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Shareblue Media, Washington Post and Raw Story

Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:

H.I.V. Is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDS Epidemic — Scientists have long tried to duplicate the procedure that led to the first permanent remission 12 years ago. With the so-called London patient, they seem to have succeeded.

Discussion: The Stranger, Big Think, New York Post and The Week

bronx.news12.com:

'I'm not running': Hillary Clinton rules out 2020 bid for first time on camera in exclusive interview with News 12 — NEW YORK - — Hillary Clinton ruled out a 2020 presidential run for the first time on camera in an exclusive interview with News 12, pledging instead to take an active role …

Discussion: CNN, Townhall, Axios, New York Times and TheBlaze

Lee Davidson / Salt Lake Tribune:

The lengthy legal fight over Utah election law is over as U.S. Supreme Court refuses to accept GOP appeal — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ended five years of legal battles by the Utah Republican Party to quash a 2014 election law that allows candidates to qualify for the ballot …

Jennifer Bendery / HuffPost: Trump's Judicial Nominees Aren't Just Ideologues. They're Really Young.

Jordain Carney / The Hill:
Trump on brink of GOP rebellion over emergency declaration

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Legislative Procedure and Washington Monthly

Ben Collins / NBC News:

On Amazon, a Qanon conspiracy book climbs the charts — with an algorithmic push — The book is currently No. 9 in all books about politics and No. 1 in all books about “Censorship,” one slot ahead of Ray Bradbury's “Farhenheit 451,” — A book that pushes the conspiracy theory Qanon climbed within …

Discussion: Splinter, more at Techmeme »

Lawrence H. Summers / Washington Post:

The left's embrace of modern monetary theory is a recipe for disaster — We've seen this movie before. — There is widespread frustration with the performance of the economy. Traditional policy approaches are not delivering hoped-for results. A relatively unpopular president is loathed …

David Morgan / Reuters:

Ivanka Trump could be on next target list from House Democrats: panel chairman — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of President Donald Trump's closest advisers, including his daughter Ivanka, were missing from a list of people from whom Democratic lawmakers sought documents on Monday …

Discussion: Political Wire

Nicholas Fandos / New York Times:
With Sweeping Document Request, Democrats Launch Broad Trump Corruption Inquiry

Discussion: Washington Post, Committee on the Judiciary, Politico, CNBC, CNN, Raw Story and Daily Kos

Jill Lawrence / USA Today:
Whether you call it impeachment or pre-impeachment, the Trump accountability era is here

Discussion: Shareblue Media, Committee on the Judiciary and The Week

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Disputed N.S.A. Phone Program Is Shut Down, Aide Says — WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans' domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes …

Discussion: emptywheel, more at Techmeme »

Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times:

Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It's Underpaying Many Men — SAN FRANCISCO — When Google conducted a study recently to determine whether the company was underpaying women and members of minority groups, it found that more men than women were receiving less money for doing similar work.

Discussion: RedState, CNBC, The Register, The Keyword, TechCrunch, The Daily Signal, Daily Wire, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, IJR, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon and National Review, more at Techmeme »

Chuck Ross / The Daily Caller:

EXCLUSIVE: Fusion GPS Founder Had Contact With State Department Official During 2016 Campaign — Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson was in contact with a State Department official who had close contacts with dossier author Christopher Steele, according to emails recently obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“We're F—ked. Gavin Is Going to Get Jeff Back Together with MacKenzie": Inside the Bezos Affair, a Tale of Love, Lust, Uncertainty, and Way More Complexifiers Than Previously Imagined — “At the end of this, we're all going to look really, really bad,” says Michael Sanchez.

more at Mediagazer »

Zack Beauchamp / Vox:

A Clinton-era centrist Democrat explains why it's time to give democratic socialists a chance — “The baton rightly passes to our colleagues on our left.” — The rise of the Democratic left, personified by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) …

Discussion: Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality, Washington Post, The Mahablog and Mother Jones

David Nakamura / Washington Post:

'Where are the women's teams?': Trump ignores women's champions in White House sports ceremonies — President Trump on Monday became the first president since Bill Clinton to play host to a college football team that won a title in the NCAA's secondary division when he feted the North Dakota State Bison at the White House.

Discussion: The Hill, The White House, IJR and Politico

New York Times:

Trump's Grip Shows Signs of Slipping as Senate Prepares to Block Wall Emergency — WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, conceded on Monday that he could not stave off final passage of a resolution overturning President Trump's national emergency declaration …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Bulwark and Spectator USA

Marianne LeVine / Politico:

Senate Republicans leave Khashoggi briefing dissatisfied — Senate Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee appeared dissatisfied with a Trump administration briefing Monday on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. — The briefing came after the Trump administration …

Discussion: One America News Network

Sister Toldjah / RedState:

Martina Learns That Nothing Short of Total Surrender Will Appease Transgender Activists — Tennis great Martina Navratilova is learning the hard way that apologizing to militant transgender activists is not - and will never be - enough. — On Sunday, Navratilova used her personal website …

Discussion: Outsports, NB Blog and Instapundit

Nick Miroff / Washington Post:

Record number of families, cold reality at border — In a dusty lot along the U.S.-Mexico border fence, a single Border Patrol agent was stuck with few options and falling temperatures. — A group of 64 parents and children had waded through a shallow bend in the Rio Grande to turn themselves in to the agent on the U.S. side.

Discussion: The American Conservative and The Daily Caller

Cnaan Liphshiz / Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Belgian carnival float features puppets of grinning Jews, a rat and money bags — (JTA) — Participants in a street celebration in the Belgian city of Aalst paraded giant puppets of Orthodox Jews and a rat atop money bags. — Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs condemned the float Sunday …

Reuters:

Second Canadian minister quits over scandal, Trudeau taking it ‘seriously’ — OTTAWA (Reuters) - In a serious blow to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a second member of his Cabinet resigned on Monday, saying she had lost confidence in how the government had dealt with an escalating political scandal.